Statement
I make paintings, collages, sculptures, lamps and installations. I also design bars and run an Artist In Residence program in the desert. I have a passion for art that emotionally engages people, and I am actively seeking opportunities to create public art.
Bio
Well over a decade ago, I moved to Seattle from Colorado. Finding myself in a place that doesn’t have much sunlight for a large portion of the year, I became pretty interested in light as a medium. After realizing how much I loved creating sculptural incandescent lamps, I started thinking of myself as a barista/ lamp maker/ thrift store shopper/ bringer of life to old things.
At that point, I didn’t consider myself an artist.
Like lots of middle class kids, I ended up in college after realizing that all I would have in my future was coffee grounds and meager tips if I didn’t go back to school. Forbidden to study art* I turned to what I like to think of as general human studies. Anthropology, Sociology and stuff of that ilk littered my transcripts as I meandered through All Subjects Not Art. An internship at a local homeless shelter quickly turned into a real job (the highest paying one I’d ever had at that time, earning me roughly $8.20 per hour- whoa!) and a social worker was born. Or so the story would have gone had I not burned out after several years. A revolving door of some of the most fascinating, beautiful people I’ve ever met was followed by a few physical assaults from some of the more wacked out clients, and eventually the latter took it’s toll. After six amazing years of juggling the meaningful work of counseling with the more lucrative work of bartending, I finally crossed over to the job with a security team at the door.
Bartending led to bar managing, which led to opening bars for other people. At some point I realized that if I could make a living making art, I’d be the happiest person alive. And if I didn’t ever try to make that happen, someday I was going to look back and regret a large portion of my life. So it was after becoming a college graduate that I formally embarked on learning as much as I could about the mediums that brought me closer to this joyful, light-filled place that existed in my mind.
Since then I have been working with various materials such as encaustic, paint, glass, paper, beeswax, coffee filters, fiber optic cable, and custom electronics to make visual art and interactive installations. My work focuses on abstraction of the social and physical landscape, the curative power of listening, and the politics of vulnerability. My paintings and installations have been exhibited throughout the Northwest region and New Mexico, including the Rio Bravo Fine Art Gallery, the now defunct Capitol Hill Arts Center, Art Patch Gallery, and Consolidated Works, A Gallery, as well as through the Edmonds Department of Cultural Services.
A few years ago I began working in Arts Administration, which entailed many long hours of coordinating art shows and events through several Seattle agencies including the Henry Art Gallery, Benham Gallery, Capitol Hill Arts Center, the Tashiro Kaplan building, and Harborview Medical Center. I have served as a panelist for 4Culture, the Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and the Northwest Artist Registry. During my tenure at Art Patch, I created a small grants program for individual artists and artist teams which awarded modest grants throughout the year rather than once annually in consideration of the sensitive timing associated with many art projects. Now I know why other folks do it annually. It was a merry-go-round of work.
A few years ago I had the pleasure of serving as an Artist Assistant to Trimpin at the Pilchuck School of Glass during his time there as an Artist in Residence. Before that I was an Artist Assistant to Larry Calkins at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, among others. I have received grants and awards from the City of Tacoma, Puget Sound Transit STart Program, Pilchuck School of Glass, Art Patch, and Consolidated Works. I recently completed a light installation in Tollefson plaza in Tacoma, WA called Forest of Souls.
It has been a long time since I earned a BA in Liberal Arts from the Evergreen State College.
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*This fact is possibly disputable, but let’s just say that it wasn’t a very supported course of study, and art was generally looked down upon by the more scientifically inclined folks to whom I am related. Ahem.