Inspired by watching party boats traverse the bay beyond my bedroom window in Portland, I made Echolocation, a portrait of a boat on a moonlit night. Its contrasting materials of bronze and printed tissue paper evoke disorienting sensations simultaneously of weightlessness and mass. The rich printed darkness of the paper functions metaphorically for the primordial abstraction of change that reveals itself as the bronze boat (serving as a symbol for the world itself) adapts to mysterious and changing conditions.

I use both two and three-dimensional strategies in my art practice to explore the nature of imagination. I often depict spaces that carry the imprint of latent activities: a fair ground for an annual festival, a drive-in movie screen in winter, or a ski lift in summer. My current series of etchings, Navigation Lights, focuses on depictions of lights at night. I intentionally use specific mark-making techniques and choice of paper to amplify the ephemerality of my subjects. Working in intaglio, I blow powdered copy toner onto copper plates. The fine black powder is heat-set and the plates etched. Until the images are etched into permanence, the toner is transient and mutable, and I am able to act and react to the images forming on the plate. This technique mimics the intention underlying my overall studio practice—to pin down the fleeting thus allowing for a slower and closer examination.

I work with paper because of its ephemeral nature and its easy expression of ordinariness. With each project I exploit new facets of paper’s rich identity. It’s commonness presents ways to both connect with and surprise a range of audiences. I hope to achieve a sleight of hand in my work that enchants the viewer, and it is my long involvement and mastery over materials that enables me to do so.