Process Notes:

I have an extensive background in the traditional methods and am attracted to forms made by casting metal and plaster, welding, and assemblage--but have

distinguished myself in the feild by combining these processes with a diverse offering of other processes like digital imagery, sewing, bookarts, and alternative

photography.   These pieces are neither sculpture, computer generated imagery, nor garment in their purest form--but rather a chimerical mixture of what I find

interesting or necessary about these mediums with the time and effort I undertook to complete a single gallery-ready object. The following is a more specific discussion

of the primary conceptual and material impulses within my work:

Clothing-Inspired Work:

The girdle and corset pieces defy their original purpose to constrict and confine from underneath--slipping between the often rigid categories defining sexual protocols

to offer a humorous commentary on the feminine role in attraction and seduction.  These works also include lavish patterns created with compulsively beaded marks,

stitched lines, knots, and sculptural alterations to mimic preening rituals and obsessive thoughts about initiating attraction.  Ultimately, this grandiose collection of

details lure the viewer to engage with the work on a more intimate level, and to encounter that offputting realization of being close in proximity to the overt randiness

of something still recognizable as underwear.  Recent interests have expanded to include Victorian-era clothing trends, and the staunch ideals relating the type of

dress and adornment to class and other household furniture and accessories.

Process Details: Fabric Pieces

All forms for my fabric-based work are lifted from existing garments or from authentic patterns of the era.  I have collected numerous girdles, corsets and photographs

to use for source material, and have developed methods to glean a replica without destroying the intact garment. Once a silhouette is created, fabric is hand-dyed,

visual patterns or sculptural alterations are derived from botanical or anatomical illustrations, and completed by hand or machine. I also include details of wearable

garments like hooks, zippers, clasps to consciously maintain the illusion of the garment’s functionality to the viewer.

Rotted Fruit Chalkware:

Alternately, working with spoiled fruit offers an intellectual mix of loss and awe as it succumbs to rot that is mitigated by environment, temperature, fragility of the

fruit skin, or accidental damage while it was still considered a viable food item. These chalkware (plaster) pieces cast from the fruit still explore similar themes of

relationships, romance and attraction, but the rotting fruit symbolizes a pent up, mislaid focus of emotion, to the point of consuming the bearer in a static and

ultimately corrupt state. This dark element in my version of chalkware opposes the effusive sentimentality of the ones seen in households since the 1940’s, and

compliments research interests about the Victorian sensibility regarding collecting, morbidity, portraiture, and fashion.  Recent forms include stringholders and

wallpockets with string connections to act as a sort of “conversation” between the items.

Process Details: Chalkware

While I employ many of the same casting techniques used in creating the original decorative chalkware,  I also complete a number of other unique steps to produce my

plaster works.  First, I collect and make direct plaster molds from rotting fruit that could be used indefinitely for replicas in sculptor’s wax.  I currently have more than

100 molds of many types and stages of decomposing fruit and other collections of actual leaves and sticks from numerous plant forms to accent the fruit forms.  Next, I

build patterns with the wax casts: each individual element is “glued” with heat into the desired arrangement.  Current works have as many as 15 individual fruit forms

and 40+ leaves and sticks that were meticulously composed and united to make a believable vignette.  After the wax pattern is complete, I build a latex mold (up to 20

painted layers over the wax) to make the vehicle to cast again in plaster for the final product. This form is painted in oils and sealed in encaustic wax before the

tintype image is imbedded.

Tintypes/Lover’s Eye Imagery:

Each piece includes a “Lover’s Eye”--an image of a woman whose eye is nested and bejeweled within the surface of the plaster. This 18th century genre of portraiture

functioned as a token for lovers, protecting identity but remaining watchful for posterity and over distances while tucked into rings, brooches and lockets.  By contrast,

the women contained in my fruit bodies look out anonymously from their mire, bitterly aware of their stagnancy and seem unable (or unwilling) to alter the situation.

To create this imagery, I digitally photograph details from found photographs circa 1900 and produce negatives for exposure in the tintype process.  Tintypes were an

early form of photography--a black metal plate is coated with a sensitized collodion and exposed directly without a negative to make an image reversal--the light areas

on the image develop, while the darker areas wash away to reveal the original plate. This process was popular in the Victorian Era, and made it possible for middle

class citizens to obtain portraits of loved ones that were inexpensive and could be inserted into portable/wearable domestic objects.