My sculpture paintings are untraditional in every way. I don’t use a canvas. I start out with a few light sketches of an idea and some cardboard. I cut the cardboard into shapes, then add burlap and plaster for a base. From there I add clay and, later, paint. Many times, I will break and cut apart the painting to reconfigure it later, as I never have anything fully planned out. I try to go with what the piece is meant to end up as. I don’t know what that is until I’m there. The clay becomes thin long coils or thick and lumpy rocks or animals.

The paintings are naïf-style landscape compositions within larger facial portraits. They reference my own explorations in nature and other cultures, and are influenced by many different naïf painters. For me, this creates a careful balance of uncanny humor and sentimental seriousness. Through this, the works have the ability to cross significant cultural, social, and psychic boundaries.