My father worked in a factory and my mother operated a day-care out of our home. Growing up, I didn’t know that being an artist was a thing. Sure, I’d heard of them, but they all seemed at least a million miles from our little factory town in northern Wisconsin. After high school, I became the first person in my family to attend college, but I made everyone uncomfortable when I declared I’d be going to art school. Art? What about getting a job? As a disappointment to so many who loved me, I began to study experimental film. I’ve never looked back. My education has served me well, and my camera has opened inumerable doors. Although I’ve been working professionally for over ten-years, I never considered my work “fine art” until a friend suggested I apply for my first gallery show. I had a wonderful experience and after selling my very first piece, I used the proceeds to attend a gilding workshop. I am excited to combine my years of photography experience with my new found love for gilding. I am currently dabbling with experimental post-processing methods and creating prints that are paired with reclaimed and restored ornate frames.
Medium: Photography
Favorite Artist Tool: Camera
Go-to Local Inspiration: Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory and bicycle rides along the lakefront
Mentor Compliment: Bryon is the real deal; a full-on one-man band. The honesty, passion, and showmanship that he brings to his music, lyrics, and poetry are born of authenticity and experience. He taught me to be more intentional and introspective with my work, and encouraged me to trust my talent and embrace the unknown.
Fun Fact: My first camera was a Kalimar Transparencies 110. Its clear-plastic housing provided a glimpse of the camera’s inner workings with major components highlighted in vibrant hot pink, toxic green, and neon yellow. I loved that thing, and much of my childhood was spent doing chores to earn money for film. I thought cameras were magic back then, and, really, I still do.
Serious Fact: During the course of the mentorship program, I was inspired to upset the apple cart, quit my job, and pursue freelance photography full time. It’d been a long-held aspiration of mine that I’d been circling for years, and the MARNmentorship program was a right-proper catalyst.
Artist Statement
I suppose I’m not overly concerned with the world as it actually exists. Rather, I’m preoccupied with the way it could be. Photography enables me to stop time, finesse details, and find the highest expressions of beauty in real people, places, and objects. Heavily influenced by George Hurrell’s work and the ultra-glamorous portraiture of Hollywood in the 1930s and ’40s, I use my lens to lure viewers with classical beauty while subverting expectations and notions of gender, era, and time. My work is technically precise and whimsical, often centering around identity, glamor, luxury, and performance. Years of training in documentary filmmaking and experience working in the fashion industry have helped me to hone this photographic style.
My current and previous body of work has focused on drag performers: divinely feminine, tenacious, and unyielding. Their boundless creativity, and ability to create and become their own icons inspires me deeply.