"Come High Water"

"Bob Squad" hairdo shaped refridgerator magnets

"Wishlist" giant mound of furniture cut from paper

"Egg Screen" screen made of a zillion eggs woven together and projected on with a video of the eggs being blown.

"25 feet wound around inside me" crocheted intestine spells the word accompanied by a photo of the yarn on my stomach.

"Tchotchke Terrain" hundreds of blue painted figurines from the dollar store.


I thought I'd give a little bit of background before I start posting about my new makings.

These images are from my senior thesis show when I was a student at Montserrat College of Art. This is the art that I created in my last year at school and it is a good bridge into my work now. Each piece uses a technique that is normally classified as craft rather than fine art. The differences between fine art and craft is a question I was looking into at the time. While at school, my persuasion was definitely very fine arts and the description of art as "crafty" was generally meant to be a little condescending.

My senior work was made with the humblest of craft skills that most children could grasp such as:paper mache, ceramic magnets, egg blowing, crochet and paper cutouts. The techniques were simple but I tried to make them monumental through sheer magnitude and repetition.

I am no longer as interested in the question of art vs craft because the more I thought about it, the less the labels made sense. The work in my show that year made me remember materials and techniques that I hadn't used since childhood and also helped me lighten up a little about art.

Back then, I called myself an artist and for a little while I called myself a crafter. For now, I feel most comfortable as a maker and that gives me the freedom to create anything and not obsess about labels and frivolity vs seriousness. Whew!