Biography
I didn’t know I wanted to become an artist until after beginning college and bouncing around from major to major trying to discover what career path seemed to be the right fit. My dad, presumably frustrated with my lack of focus while simultaneously wasting a lot of money, mailed me a paint-by-numbers watercolor set. Soon, instead of using the numbered side of the paper, I began flipping it over to make my own creations on the back. This experience initiated my pursuit of a career in the arts and allowed me to discover the driving force behind my need to create.
As an art education major I took my first Metalsmithing class and quickly fell in love with the materials, processes, and the discipline’s inherent relationship to the body. Shortly thereafter, I decided to continue my artistic development by enrolling as an MFA candidate at Texas Tech University. After completing my education I moved to San Antonio, Texas where I was resident artist and co-director of Clamp Light Artist Studios and Gallery for six years. Today I am the Metals Studio Manager and Professor of Metals at Southwest School of Art.
Artist Statement
I use sculpture, installation, and metalsmithing processes to examine themes of identity, memory, loss, and perception. Feminine forms connected to my childhood are fetishized through the transformation of patterns of lace, or clusters of flowers into intimate objects and spaces. This repetitive manipulation of the “fetishistic” object uncovers a fascination with contradictory concepts, which allows both fact and fantasy, acceptance and denial to exist side by side. Consistently my works examine what lies within and between the boundaries of otherness and sameness, isolation and intimacy, and the masculine and the feminine.
Medium
Sculpture, Installation, Metalsmithing
Hashtags/Keywords
#metal #jewelry #steel #cornucopia #contemporarycraft #rust #wearableart #mask #art #craft
