Eight years after I received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Saint Mary’s College of California—-where I practiced and honed the lyrical essay— I came across the theories of Maori psychotherapist David Grove. In particular, his insight that space itself is a carrier of meaning struck me as insightful. However, exploring physical space is not something that lends itself easily to written narratives or even to lyrical essays. To explore space, you have to move around in it. Collage has enabled me to translate my essays into physical realities where this kind of exploration is possible. 

My collage is a visual expression—the physical form—of my essays. Sourced from found objects, my work explores the intersection of what is (perhaps) mythical, autobiographical, contextual, and current—what is past, present, and what could or could not be. Wishes, prophecies, curses— the conceptual and often metaphorical landscape attempts to reach the intangible through the wood, paper, thread, fabric, and written word from which it is comprised. 

My paternal grandmother was a prolific painter of landscapes and portraits— she was drawn to scenes from the Sierra Nevada, and painted the portraits of mothers with their children. Although her medium of choice was oil on canvas, her studio was peppered with her collage—an art-making method that allowed her to explore possibilities for the compositions that would later be rendered on canvas. My collage practice did not begin until well after my writing career established itself. Yet, working in this way has felt like a homecoming, a return to the source of inspiration for both writing and visual art.