Artist Statement

My work is a persistent journey where I am scavenging flea markets, exploring second hand shops, reluctantly entering homes of hoarders, but I must not hesitate in search for thrown away and lost jewelry. As a thrifty consumer, I must warn you about the dangers of these shops; if you care to join me on this adventure you must not fall weak to the distraction of frivolous and extraneous items such as another handbag too small for your pack of cigarettes or a set of vintage workout tapes. Overlooking these distractions, I find myself sifting through piles of cufflinks, charm bracelets, gaudy broaches and an unbelievable amount of religious trinkets… has everyone lost their faith or just hoping I would find it? These expensive representations of themselves, remnants of other’s lives just thrown out. Marked by time, rusty, and broken I dig through my treasure chest optimistically searching- each piece used, abused, and cast aside, traces of their nameless wearers, symbols of who they are and who they were, forgotten by them but waiting for me in a heaping pile of dust and cheap imitations.

Perhaps it’s the never-ending cycle of production and consumption that floods our world with rejected objects that fuels my mania for collecting and my obsession with other people’s stuff. For years I have rummaged through these shops to accumulate these relinquished materials fascinated by their real or reinvented narratives. I love endless combing through bundles of bangles, detangling strands of silver beads, and separating the studs from the hoops, picking them up and putting them down, gluing them down, gluing them together, ripping them apart, bending wires, snipping posts, and de-linking chain, allowing them to work together, allowing them to stand alone, finding construction in their deconstruction.