Secedre

This work began as a reflection of the exploration of John Wesley Powell. A scientist and explorer, Powell was responsible for charting much of the arid American West. His exploration of vasts swaths of land, particularly its watersheds and rivers led to his belief that the arid West was not suitable for agricultural development. His Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States proposed irrigation systems and state boundaries based on watershed areas to avoid disagreements between states.

Reliquary

An installation composed of wooden pieces carved and painted with latex house paint.
Each wooden piece is shaped organically, each facet's cut are determined by an algorithm. The pieces are then organized by a series of rules determining the shape of the overall piece.

Burl Maple Single Cut

One of my very first builds that taught me a lot about finish work and neck carving. I have a lot of sentimental value wrapped up in the first few because I built them from wood left over from when my families suburban house was built in 1985. This is one of those instruments. It was sold to an owner in Oregon.

Exploring Creativity through Other Artistic Media: Ceramics, puppets, carvings, creations

I am not only a performer, I am a creator. As a puppeteer, I often write, design, and build all the aspects of my performances. As much as I can, I try to strengthen the artist in me who draws, sculpts, designs, carves, and dreams with her hands. Exploring my creativity this way informs the kind of work I perform and how creative I can be. Most artists do not fit simply in a box, they have a need to create, to explore, and to share stories.

Sculpture

Inspired by my experiences as an educator and fabricator, my studio practice embodies a preoccupation with how and where form is imbued with meaning. Presently, construction materials, building principles, and the contrasting effect between degradation and “new-ness” are examined in my sculptures through a lens of formalism and material. Invoking elements of structure and functionality, my artworks are deliberately ambiguous but not ambivalent to the their associations within the built environment.

The Classic

This guitar was built with the classic single cut guitar shape in mind. It features a spalted maple top and one piece chambered mahogany body. Koa inlays line the rosewood fingerboard and the single pickup adds to this guitars elegance and simplicity. One of the first instrument I sold and learned the expensive lesson about shipping instruments over long distances. The new owner was very pleased!

The Wine Guitar

Wine goes well with most occasions and this guitar was inspired by the Wine in the Woods craft show I participated in over the summer. It features a chambered ash body, walnut top, makore fingerboard and birds eye maple head cap. Wine cork accents for the knobs and truss rod cover along with a grape vine inlay at the 12th fret. Since I didn't find a buyer at the wine festival this guitar hung around for a few months until I decided to participate in a charity fund raising event for flood relief efforts from the 2016 Old Ellicott City flood.

TMD Guitar

This guitar was built for a local listener funded radio station. It features a one piece chambered mahogany body, quilt maple top and ebony fingerboard. The hand cut inlays feature the stations call letters in the headstock and the stations frequency on the fingerboard. The custom F-hole was designed to accompany the shape of the body and head stock.

Charity Auction Guitar

A project completed at the end of 2013 for a NYE charity auction for the Maryland chapter of The Chive fundraising group. It was the final in a batch of four instruments I was building at the time. This guitar means a lot to me for many reasons but the lesson building this instrument taught me is I have talent and I have worth and I have to share that with my community. I hope to do more charity events in the future.

The True and False of Love, Lies & Audiotape

This book is a series of boxes built to house a poem that explores language--the way that it both frees, constrains, connects and isolates. The boxes each contain an inlaid letter that corresponds with a section of the poem that is contained inside. Four species of wood were used in creation of this book and each box contains at least two of the four species. A portion of the title of the poem is burned into the side of each box. In addition, each box swivels on a dowel that runs through all four boxes.
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