“My childhood days were often spent exploring rural farmland outside St. Louis, Missouri. The area’s ubiquitous dark soil is enriched with decades of farming and decaying homesteads with extensive history, abandoned for centuries. Particular homesteads bring back mysterious childhood emotions when I recall my experiences exploring particular abandoned homes. I remember the unique dry, yet musty scent of the house, a scent that took centuries to create. I remember the wind eerily whistling thru the windows, blowing the remains of fragmented draperies thru glassless windowpanes. I remember the stillness of the decaying materials, making visible the spirit of the past. There was a general quietness within the home, often interrupted by sounds of cowling crows that blew in with the haunting winds. Late evenings provided the most magical experiences. The atmosphere of the home would shift as the light trickled through cracks and revealed the Victorian patterns on decaying plaster walls lined with aged wooden slats and rusted nail heads. The rays of light captured the still dust suspended in flight.

Fragments of wall coverings loosened by gusts of ghostly winds would dance thru the air as if nature was setting free centuries of forgotten memories. Grand faux marble fireplaces covered in soot sat cold at the end of each spacious room. Creaky wooden floors were missing boards, unearthing the skeleton of the home. The materials were dark, stained and rich in texture and color that had evolved, darkened and aged over centuries. This pictorial language that some would find haunting and disturbing, I found inspiring. Here, I have given these memories new meaning: They have become symbols of our past and long forgotten bloodlines – that holds an umbilical connectivity that spans time.

Within the walls of my youth, of my memories and of my imagination, there lived something magical, a quest for meaning and a celebration to all that is divine. This visceral quest provided a catalyst to understand the souls still living within these walls; the centuries of experiences, emotions, hardships and generations of ended bloodlines speak to issues of heart and soul and always remain in any home.

Take You Home is about the craft and process of layering materials. The colors, textures and patterns are inspired by my memories of this deconstructed house, making visible the flesh and bone of a new culture, formed by a consciousness abandoned for centuries. Stirring the collective memory with images awakening the modern soul, each creation builds a very definite and multifaceted aura, evoking a personal and primal viewer experience. Each piece in Take You Home explores themes that connect a global audience with the use of historic images with a strong instinct. Using tremendously enriched materials and surfaces, I create a combination of things that look perfect and ruined at the same time, juxtaposed to create rhythm, harmony and coherence. My themes explore psychology, paranormals, spirituality, genealogy and the passage of time in order to create a connection between memory and a primitive association that has been sculpted into a modern context.”