Immaculate ideas. Consummate conceptions. Electric fireplaces, stardates, and the speed of light. Sleeping alive.

I am fascinated with the production of image, knowledge, and the building of institutions. My central research interests lie within the domains of social identity and cognition. I am specifically interested in motivational aspects of social identification and how social identities may be used to satisfy individuals’ needs for assimilation and differentiation- belonging and remaining distinct. The thread that runs through the whole of my work is an interest in understanding the importance of relationship in the lives of individuals.

I am a borrower who prefers scratch-and-sniff, scratch-off, and snatch to building from scratch. By modifying the structure and composition of existing objects or data, I hope to challenge the viewer’s relationship to the original, inviting participants to critique existing hegemonic systems rather than taking them for face value- seeking alternatives to the status quo.

Within my work I intend to develop an aesthetic that invests visual representation with aspects of interaction and socialization. My practice is not relegated to the creation of objects of which one can easily say where they precisely start or end; it is continued in other realities and echoed in other nodes. The works are as much process, and interaction, as they are object, and though they occupy space sometimes quite materially, or volumetrically, they are on other occasions very narrative, or textual, or experiential.  

The whole of my work is as much a collection of activities as it is a definable material structure, visible and understood by a mapping of resources, processes and constructions, a coherent stream of experience synthesized through a diversity of media streams.

PEDAGOGICAL STATEMENT

For me, art is communication. In working to empower the next generation of artists, I strive to give students the confidence and training necessary to effectively build their own modes of production and produce personally and/or socially relevant expressions and systems.

I enjoy teaching, and creating curricula, for all levels in the fields of 3-D art and design. In introductory classes, I focus on developing students’ competency in applying technical skills and procedural thinking to aesthetic problems in artmaking. I introduce students to the historical fundamentals of their field by teaching them the basics of object making, spacial theories and visual representation. Through various courses, students become familiar with traditional sculptural techniques: additive and subtractive modeling, metal fabrication, forging, brazing, and welding [mig, tig, oxy, spot]. Casting and carving, wood joinery, competency with hand tools, and approaches to non-traditional materials are also covered. Cross-disciplinary practice is encouraged and opportunity is given for students to investigate and incorporate other nodes of artistic production including: installation, interactivity, site-specificity, and ephemeral and media-based work.

In intermediate and advanced courses, I have worked very closely with students, both individually and in groups, on creating novel, exhibitable projects, and on developing their ability to articulately contextualize, argue for, and document their constructions.

I am also interested in developing curricula more closely related to my own interests in the field, such as the acquiring and manipulation of existing systems, utilization of contextual shifts in public and private spaces and the creation of interactive installations.

I attempt to address the concerns of each group of students independently by providing additional material on subjects of their particular interest, and adding new assignments with specific conceptual or technical concerns to a syllabus. By approaching new ideas, opinions, and practices with this enthusiasm, I am able to cultivate rigorous investigation in many directions within a flexible, yet focused, context.

Much contemporary art is derived from a heterogeneous process which can not be understood as simply image or object, but more environment and experience, a multivalent approach that considers space and time, the real and the virtual. Art education needs to be inclusive of this diversity. Because a comprehension of traditions and concepts helps students focus their own creativity and ideas, instruction on concrete technical skills is emphasized as well as the ability to navigate the often nebulous realm of historical, social, cultural, critical, and aesthetic considerations of mediums.

Overall, my goal as an educator remains the same, to foster creativity by helping students develop their technical proficiencies, think critically about their work, and give material existence to their thoughts and concerns.