Artist Statement
I investigate historical handcrafted objects and their contemporary mass-produced
counterparts. My research analyzes the endless drive to create more efficient
production methods and the impulse to self-identify through the objects we create. For
instance, I see parallels between the way a society adorns its domestic interiors and the
way its inhabitants adorn their bodies. In my work, the material responds both to my
hand and to a set of digital and essentially invisible data commands. In many ways, contemporary production is about commanding bits of data. The material must operate in such a way that it can respond to those invisible commands.

I am interested in that moment where invisible and intangible elements become such an
essential part of the concept or process that they develop into a material in themselves.
To analyze concepts such as time and history in relationship to the designed objects we
make and own is to understand more about the production of new ideas. It has
become clear that new ideas can be understood as a reconstruction of that which
already exists. It is plausible that all visual aesthetics are derivatives of one another,
and the new ideas lie in seeing potential patterns in the visual backlog of objects and
images that catalog our existence. In their repetition throughout history, decorative
design motifs function as a tangible indicator of the space between past and present. A
consistent impulse in design is to combine the past with the present so we can be
doubly validated in our aesthetic tastes and decisions. This kind of consistency in the
logic of taste is a pattern that is not limited to ornamental details, but to a larger and
more encompassing design impulse. Design allows us to layer what we are on top of
what we were.

My research is an exploration of primarily Victorian objects that inherit the scale and
composition of the source artifacts while utilizing modern production processes and
materials. I superimpose a system of new logic onto an old system of decoration as a
way of understanding historical and aesthetic patterns and impulses, and how visual
expectations are changed and edited as processes change.