Truth is malleable, after all, and perspectives shift. But the small moments in our lives hold a potency that inform how we walk through the world. Photography is one of the tools I use to capture those small moments.

In 1968, when I was ten years old, my mother gave me her old Brownie Reflex camera. I didn’t know then the pivotal role photography would play in the development of my art. Heck, when I was ten years old I had little inkling that art would be my path. I thought I wanted to be an astronaut when I was old enough. Or a hippie - it was 1968 after all.

Yet by 1992 I was spending most of my time in the darkroom I kept in my studio apartment’s tiny bathroom. I lived in Palo Alto, California at the time, on the second floor of the Pacific Art League. I was enamored by the work of Doug and Mike Starn, twin brothers who pushed the boundaries of photography then and continue to do so today. Their torn and layered images held together with unconventional materials like wax, wheat paste and Scotch tape had me obsessed. They inspired my attempts to create work that set aside the rules of traditional photography.

But as darkroom processing and the joy of happy accidents made room for the speed and precision of digital I put away my analog camera. I moved to Ireland and made pine furniture for awhile. And then ten years later I returned to California where I spent another decade treading water.

It was only after a move to Charlottesville, Virginia with my partner Ben that I found my footing. I am now a resident artist at McGuffey Art Center in downtown Charlottesville.

My current work uses original and vintage photographs, text, encaustic medium and oil pastel. After I’ve selected and edited the image, it is printed on tissue paper and mounted onto cradled birch with encaustic medium. The wax renders the tissue paper transparent, allowing me to layer multiple images and text. I paint sections of the composition with pigmented wax. Additional marks are sometimes added with oil pastel. When the work is finished I varnish the piece with cold wax medium.

And that’s how I tell stories about the small moments in my life. The moments that inform how I walk through the world.