I consider my work paintings created through collage, rather than collage in the traditional sense. I paint with paper: tearing it, glueing it, peeling it back, turning it over, and reworking it.

My pieces speak for me. They reveal how I experience and feel the world. They express what I struggle to find words for.

Some works carry the essence of places I have been, others the emotions I have felt. Still others depict nothing at all except shapes, colors, and textures. Color is deeply important. It shapes the atmosphere and emotion of each piece. In addition to paper, I use a variety of mediums: charcoal, graphite, colored pencils, markers, paint sticks, pastels, and acrylic paint.

Destruction is not separate from creation. It is an integral part of my creative process. So are line and other forms of mark-making.

Happenstance plays an important role. Loosening the grip and moving aside to let the piece come alive—like it comes from elsewhere. What emerges can be surprising and exciting. Those moments—hearing the paper tear, feeling the textures, letting colors evoke emotions—are a type of meditation for me.

I’m also interested in the process. There are so many directions to explore, so many outcomes to be discovered. My practice is alive and ever-changing, full of possibility. That freedom nourishes and excites me. It gets me into my studio. What will I create today?

In recent work, I explore the integration of fragments from earlier works on paper. Past work becomes part of new work. Something that once existed as a complete piece on its own can lose that identity and become color, texture, or marks in something else.