Magpies make something out of everything.
I've been making things for a long time. When I was a kid, I would get into trouble for foraging into my mom's crafting supplies (mostly acrylic paints and silk flowers) but it was her own need to express herself creatively that inspired me to do the same. When asked in third grade to make a model of a house for school, my mom and dad went a little over the top and instead of using a shoe box or similar, I had a hand-constructed real model ranch style made from thin plywood with a removable roof and landscaping.
Landscaping.
I'd also shave crayons with scissors and meticulously glue the shavings onto paper to create dimensional art (and a huge mess) or later in my college years I'd create near life-size palm trees for a summer school reading program out of butcher paper and tomato cages.
I think it might be odd (ha) that I didn't really continue with art classes in high school since I loved creating things so much, but to be honest I didn't think I had talent for art. You know, real art. Not-crayon-shaving art.
I never stopped making, though. Years later, I found out that art can be more than sketching or sculpture. Now I wish I'd taken those classes! It's taken a while to develop some skills and an aesthetic that is my own. I've always been attracted to shadowy places where real and imagined are just flip sides of the same coin. I love queer, strange landscapes and unsettling scenes. I visit the uncanny valley. I employ vivid colors and a paradoxical marriage of whimsy and grotesque. I believe just as much in inspiration as horror.
I never stopped working with dimension and I've held on to my love of constructing little scenes in boxes of various sorts. I idolize artists like Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dalí while at the same time appreciating the endlessly hopeful work of Kelley Rae Roberts (I'm a possibilitarian!) and the impressive inclusive-of-everything work of Jane Davies. I just like work that speaks, boldly and directly, to the human experience. I like taking objects and making them into something else entirely different. I like seeing what things are and what they could be.
