I am interested in the way women feel.  Discussion about pain, fear, humiliation, and discomfort is moving to me.  Experiences that jar us are what make us truly strong.  For me there is so much shame that is impressed solely on being born a woman.  Act this way.   Don’t act that way.  You can do this, but you shouldn’t do that.  Cover up. No, show it off.  We are expected to be feminine, but we can’t be too “womanly.”  A video piece earlier in my career, of me shaving my head, was about embracing the full self without any societal suppression.  This performance, along with inspiration from the overt weirdness in my personal life, sparked my interest in mixed media and moved me in a new direction.

Taking the broken, discarded, and unwanted trash and re-contextualizing it into beautiful and thought-provoking treasure is my focus.  From incorporating human teeth and blood into my earlier work, I have blossomed into an avid dumpster diver and use hair, wigs, and dumpster gems as my materials.  The investigation of hair culture has been cathartic for me and has driven me into exploring specifically black hair culture.  My in progress work displays white appropriation and social stereotyping of what is seen as ”black.”  Part of what I love about this subject matter is that the more I research and try to genuinely grasp black culture, the more I realize it is something I will never understand as a white woman. This inspires me and I don’t shy away from making the viewer uncomfortable. My goal is to push the viewer to reconsider beauty and Western cultural values.