He was wrong. I’m not famous but neither was Van Gogh while he was alive.

Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s is something I’m often thankful for. Television was my favorite babysitter while my parents were busy, and shows like The Twilight Zone, Land Of The Giants, One Step Beyond, The Avengers, and numerous horror films helped shape my love of mystery and the macabre. Add to that books like Alice in Wonderland, The Metamorphosis, 1984, and anything by Ray Bradbury or Zenna Henderson, combined with childhood memories of communal living in a San Francisco warehouse, and my path to Dada and Surrealism seemed destined.

I have over four years of university education but, rather than strive for a degree, I chose the classes I wanted and knew I could finish. I drew, painted, wrote essays and poetry, and dissected eyeballs, but I was not much for following rules. I also had the attention span of a hamster and it was very hard to finish projects, let alone start them—my neurodivergence will most likely have contributed to that dilemma; something I only learned about in the last two decades.

While I still enjoy drawing, painting, and creating assemblages, collage has been my medium of choice in the last decade. Piecing random images together brings instant gratification that I don’t find in painting and, lately, I’ve discovered that digital collage is equally satisfying. Collage is my number one love.

These things here in my shop are reflections of how my thoughts and dreams converge; how my love and longing for the past and the strong sense of nostalgia, as I reflect back on my life, meet in the tangible world. I think about what I’ve treasured since I was a kid (nature, mysteries, the cosmos, storms, carnivals, the supernatural, miniatures, trains, twinkling fairy lights) and not much has changed. I'm still that same kid in a grown up body. I create things that I love for myself in hopes that others will see the beauty and mystery in the stories they tell. That's the best thing I can do, and it's what I do best.