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.