My creative side has always been inspired by the built environment around me and the various states of its decay.  The city of New Orleans is steeped in history in a way that continually inspires me, but my work is not just about history.  In New Orleans, especially since Katrina, I get a sense of history not just as a particular phase of the past (the way one would from a museum) but as a process, a transformation, one that is going on every second of every day all around me.  What I try to capture in my artwork is some of the sense of a city in the process of becoming a ruin, of present fading into history.

My paintings are usually concerned with the first stages of this process, and often feature buildings from the neighborhoods, including a series that imagines New Orleans as a modern-day Venice, complete with gondolas. 

My work with found objects approaches the past more directly. Most of these mixed-media and jewelry pieces are composed, quite literally, of lost fragments of the past, from weathered cypress siding rescued from a crumbling house to discarded skeleton keys and tarnished metal that litter the ground.

My work as a historical preservationist inspired the development of my Skeleton-Key Necklace line. Each piece is formed by an antique escutcheon (or key hole) and key from a demolished home joined together lariat style. In creating these pieces I have always been struck by the intricacy of the ornamentation with which a simple key hole was once adorned. One can often tell the architectural style of the house—Queen Anne, Gothic Revival, Arts and Crafts, and more—by the appearance of the escutcheons, as if every single detail was designed as part of an integrated whole. I like to think of these necklaces, which cross over the heart, as talismans for the homes we have lost. My hope is that although the homes no longer stand, my work helps ensure, in some small way, their continued survival.

One of my most important inspirations is my work with a local salvage expert, during which I helped excavate centuries-old privies in the heart of the city.  From this collaboration I acquire the physical materials I continue to use in my artwork (like fragments of china, skeleton keys, glass bottles and porcelain dolls parts) as well as the emotional material that drives me.  Wrenching the past up from the ground and reassembling it into something that expresses the melancholy and decaying grandeur of this city is what I strive for...

Bio

Solo Shows

"Old World Charm," The O'Malley House, New Orleans, LA, 2004
Creative Alliance Art House Tour, New Orleans, LA 2011

Group Shows and Events

Featured Jewelry Artist at New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA 2012
"Salon D'Refuses," Trouser House Gallery, New Orleans, LA 2011
Ongoing exhibit of work at Guy Lyman Gallery, New Orleans, LA 2011
"Analog Frontiers," Zeitgeist Cultural Center, New Orleans, LA 2011