Irene on Fridays is an in-progress series of paintings based on a photograph of myself and my late grandmother. More to come...

From January 18, 2015 to January 18, 2016, I collected data about my daughter's first year of life and created digital, timeline-like drawings about her daily schedule. I tracked the times of each nursing session, pumping session, nightly sleep and morning wake-up, daytime nap, diaper, bath, bottle, and solid food acceptance. I began the project with hand-dyeing samples of wool, scanning the samples and adjusting them into digital files, and then arranging the “tiles” into blanket-like digital compositions.

This project began in the summer of 2016 when I visited over a dozen local snowball stands in Baltimore including Walther Gardens (the oldest snowball stand in the country!), One Sweet Moment, Elizabeth & Ziggy’s, Sensational Snowballs, and Summer Delights. I documented the architecture of each snowball stand in the early morning before the stand opened for the day. I then returned to the stand to order what I considered the most unique snowball flavor on the menu and photographed the snowball. I illustrated a map of the locations of each stand and assembled the photographs and map into a small zine (booklet). Each stand has its pros and cons: for example, Elizabeth & Ziggy's has the best ice, but Sensational Snowballs has the best marshmallow. I highlight these traits in posters I’ve been designing since that first summer doing research. My goal with this project is to establish Snowballtimore as an authority and archive for this summer Baltimore tradition and to publicly “certify” city snowball stands as being recognized by this project.

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The news in Baltimore is often bleak, especially in the summer when crime rates seem to rise. I hope to promote this positive, community-engaged practice of going to an independently owned, small business establishment and spending time bonding with community members while cooling off with sugary, shaved ice and gooey marshmallow in a styrofoam cup. 

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Pizza Party Twister occurred during the Field Day exhibition at Artscape 2014 in Baltimore, MD and has also been included in the group exhibition, "Subversive Play: Artists Challenging Mechanisms of Control," at Structura Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The official Twister rules state that Twister is “the perfect fun starter for every party.” I agree with this statement but believe that playing Twister on a giant, delicious looking pizza is a more effective way of beginning what one hopes will be a fun, friendly gathering.

The object of the game is simple: to outmaneuver all other opponents in placing one’s hands and feet on different types of pizza toppings (mushrooms, pepperoni, basil, and olives) as directed by the spinner. Players may participate as individuals or as teams. If one person on a team falls or touches an elbow or a knee to the pizza surface, the entire team loses–this is serious pizza stuff. The referee will use a spinner to determine on which topping participants should place their hands or feet. Players must remove their shoes to participate. Whenever one player falls or allows an elbow or knee to touch the pizza, that player is out and the game continues until only one participant stands victorious. The winner is awarded a handmade ceramic golden pizza slice and is dubbed a Pizza Twisting Legend.

The set­-up of the game includes a large circular vinyl mat resembling a pizza that rests on top of Astroturf carpeting to give the game an authentic backyard feel. This is also known as the Pizzarena. Signage includes information about the game’s schedule.

Pizza Party Twister is a means of bringing out the competitive spirit of participants, allowing one to flex their yoga and Pilates muscles while simultaneously inducing the urge to satisfy a craving for hot, delicious pizza.

This chapter of my Blaze Breakers series began with an exploration of the semiotics of hunting textiles, particularly camouflage patterns. The somewhat moronic juxtaposition of invisibility (camouflage) and visibility (blaze orange) within hunting textiles is fascinating to me: the hunter must wear blaze orange to communicate their presence to other hunters (I’m not a bear.), yet also wear camouflage as a cloaking device to blend in with their surrounding landscape. “The hunter” and “the hunted” in these works can be interpreted metaphorically to communicate general themes such as in/visibility, dis/appearance, and honesty: camouflage is an illusion, a visible lie, so is blaze orange truthful?

The Hunter and The Hunted: Made to Measure presents a lexicon of essential elements and principles that establish the foundation of The Hunter and The Hunted series. The elements and principles of The Hunter and The Hunted are light, warmth, surface, measurement, visibility, organization, transformation, honesty, history, and time. Most of the projects included in the exhibition at McDaniel College were created specifically for the Rice Gallery and are grounded in both institutional and personal memories: I was a McDaniel College student from 2005–2007 and am currently a full-time faculty member. The space that is now the Rice Gallery served as the College’s library from 1909–1961, and for the duration of this exhibition, serves as a library for this body of work. I felt it important to present the building blocks of The Hunter and The Hunted series in an academic setting instilled with its own foundational elements: the seven liberal arts.

Acrylic paintings based on photographs taken of snowball stands throughout the Baltimore-metro area. This is an ongoing series that started in spring 2020.