My mixed media wall installations have been a consistent part of my practice for the past ten years. I consider these walls to be an on-going conversation—each one relating to, yet differing from, the one before. Each wall is a two layered massing composed primarily of new work and of a small amount of work from past walls. They are installed on site and are not pre-planned diagrammatically, so that each individual piece suggests and directs the placement of the next. Through these shingled walls, I continue to address my questions on the nature of cognition and perception.

The construction of the walls serves as a metaphor for the process of cognition. Disparate, partially obscured images and texts are woven together across and throughout the installation. Computer manipulated images are juxtaposed with drawings, paintings, mixed media constructions, writings, photos, and found images/objects-- altered and unaltered. Seemingly incompatible materials and images nevertheless link and connect one to the next. They are reminders that knowledge is accumulated slowly and in a complexity of ways-through language, direct experience, sensory perception, and memory. A quick glance at the wall reveals only a proliferation of images; like a singular moment of perception, it is both a valid and unfinished reading. Only an investment of time will uncover reoccurring images and readable texts. Although the rectangle/wall always creates a sense of order, the true internal structure, a partially decipherable narrative, requires a more considered search.

The notion of judging a book by its cover is the starting point of my most recent individual works: mixed media altered books and texts. Initially, I rely on snap decisions and gut reactions to select the texts. The pulse quickening, love-(or annoyance)at-first-sight sensations have led me to choose Harlequin Romances with excruciatingly bad titles, discolored and fragile old pages of text, and seductively beautiful art historical images.

I consider my subsequent alterations to be both commentary and collaboration. It is my intention to highlight that aspect which I first find most compelling. Part criticism, part homage, my added marks—stitched, collaged, taped—alternate between subversion and celebration. Frequently these conditions co-exist within a single piece. I prefer my alterations to suggest multiple reads and to pose questions rather than allude to specific answers. The ambiguities are meant to serve as spaces; they are invitations to draw conclusions from one’s own personal narrative.