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My art is made of collective memory and personal history. I create small images inspired by a recalled image or family story. I then weave together these bits of memory with color and humor, creating a public glimpse into a private world. Or a private glimpse into a public exploration of collective memory and mythology.
My ancestors were homesteaders in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alberta. My father’s job took us through the small towns and backroads of Utah, Idaho and Montana. Many of my early memories are of wide open spaces, groves of trees along rivers and tiny houses dwarfed by giant mountain ranges. My work explores the mythologies of the American West – the rugged individual in a harsh country – against my current life of a comfortable, safe small town existence.
When I begin a new piece, the inspiration often comes from that contrast between the emptiness of open country and the meanings of home. I explore the places where my personal history interacts with collective memory, and how my recalled images merge with the larger, shared experiences of our culture. I use birds and animals to express the surprise and confusion of our contemporary world.
My work invites viewers to reflect on their own visual memories and inherited narratives and to carry these collective memories of their families or communities forward into a storyline for a new generation.
