Domestic Disturbance: : A Surreal Climate Change Experiential

As a military brat I experienced a great deal of displacement.  I also experienced many different cultures, landscapes and climates.  My childhood years bounced between playing in the sweaty jungles and fort-like military bunkers on post-war Okinawa, to adapting to the unforgiving Arizona desert, where man-made swimming holes pocked nearly every inch of the city’s concrete skin, affording the lie that survival was somehow due to fitness. 

There was a lot to see, which was good.  There was a lot I did not want to feel.  As a defense mechanism, I frequently turned to the landscape of my inner making.  Residing there I could keep everything I owned, and no one ever parted.  My code was to be self-sufficient.  I modeled my lifestyle after Gilligan’s Island, where survival depended upon one’s own creative problem solving and everything was made by hand, preferably of bamboo. 

 My sculptures and layered installations are an outgrowth of my urge to control my environment by using what is at hand in order to transport the viewer into a physical and psychological landscape of my imagination. Through my works, I try to make the world a better place by giving viewers the experience of awe and wonderment along with a message of empowerment through creative reuse, hoping to inspire others to rely on the self, rather than giving away that power to others.

My recipe for success is this: start where you are with what you have on hand and build from there. Apply yourself consistently. Eventually you will create something grand. Something from nothing. Something like an installation that brings to life the psychological landscape where most of me resides.

December, 2017