Installations
Temporary & Experiential
Site-specific, large-scale, temporary works that use simple materials to achieve volume and form to create a memorable experience for the audience.
the Time Being, string & aluminum, 2022
Composed of hundreds of feet of butcher string, this sculpture is tensioned to an aluminum conduit structure, using simple hardware to attach to the ceiling and walls of the gallery. It floats above the floor, inviting the audience inside to take a moment of reflection and meditation on the present moment.
The Time Being is a new composition of a past site-specific installation, Warm Memory (2015), which sought to broaden the concept of home to include the community at large. This piece is a shrinking of home, back to the self, nodding to our survival of the last few years by isolating ourselves from others during the pandemic.
Here & Now, clock hands & ceramic, 2022
2,000+ clock hands radiating from an orb to the gallery walls, tensioned with fishing line. Clock hands are used to denote time on a clock. Time is a manmade concept used to create order in our world.
Here & Now is a new composition of clock hands, repurposed from previous site-specific installations from the Time/Big Bang series (2010-2012). A ceramic orb, glazed to resemble new James Webb telescope photography was used to create a center as a nod to humankind’s ever evolving understanding of the universe.
... at This Moment @ SXU Gallery
November 2 - December 3, 2022
This solo exhibition is new compositions of past site-specific installations Warm Memory & Time/Big Bang. They invite the audience to pause and consider our man-made concepts of time and to mindfully meditate on the importance of the present moment. Saint Xavier University invited me to share my artworks involving simple materials with their art student community, who often struggle with access to traditional sculpture studios after graduating college.
Flower Bud
 Flower Bud, activated, 2020 |
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 Flower Bud, exterior, 2020 |
 Flower Bud, entrance, 2020 |
 Flower Bud, loved by these kids, 2020 |
 Flower Bud, interior chandelier detail, 2020 2020 |
 Flower Bud, social media, 2020 |
March 2020
An installation of a larger-than-life 'flower bud' that a person can enter into, sit inside of and control the brightness of a colorful chandelier that reflects a kaleidoscope on foil walls. It represents the 'bright' potential for progress that lives inside all of us and through us as beings connected to the universe.
Created for the Life In Progress exhibition by AnySquared Projects at the Hairpin Arts Center
MELT + TOAST + DUNK
 400+ Oreo Sculpture being dunked |
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 Dunking of Oreo sculpture with audience |
 Cherry candy sculpture slowly melting |
 Wall-hung toaster being loaded with bread |
January 2019
These time-based, performative sculptures were created during my CORE residency at the Chicago Art Department in 2019. White bread, Oreos & cherry candies are nostalgic foods of American childhoods that were manufactured in Chicago.
Together with the audience, we dunked the 400+ Oreo sculpture, toasted bread and slowly melted a cherry candy sculpture
The Longest Journey
 Longest Journey, detail, 2015 |
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 Longest Journey, detail, 2015 |
 Longest Journey, 2015 |
 Longest Journey, detail, 2015 |
 Longest Journey, activated, 2015_edited.jpg |
2015
The longest journey is from our heart to our mind. This meditation spot was created for the Hearts & Minds all city collaborative art show at the Hairpin Arts Center
Warm Memory
 Warm Memory, inside installation looking out |
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 Warm Memory, string & aluminum, 2015 |
 Warm Memory, string detail, 2015 |
 Warm Memory, installation in-progress detail, 2015 |
 Warm Memory, activated by Angel Spit, 2015 |
2015
My intention with this installation was to create an experience for the audience that allowed them to feel the community networks and connections that anchor individuals to a neighborhood. Giving physicality to the invisible ties that bind and create our home within the community.
The house-like structure was modeled to fit exactly in the pie-shaped corner of the space and its perspective.
40,000 linear feet of string was used to create the idea of a home that the audience could walk inside of and experience the shift of scale and perspective as they moved toward the nose of the building that looks directly out on to the Logan Square neighborhood.
Nebulous Connections
 Nebulous Connections, installed in Art on Armitage window gallery |
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 Nebulous Connections, detail |
 Nebulous Connection, square nut |
April 2013
Collaboration with Stacy Peterson and Pei San Ng at Art on Armitage. We explored the Golden Age, the era that we are just waking up to. It is a time of unity, harmony and prosperity.
This concept evolved from a trip to Creative Reuse Warehouse with the aim of constructing an art installation made of recycled materials. Using leftover industrial hardware and metal wires, the parts were woven together to create connections, building something bigger than the single item. The nebulous, cloud shapes are a visual representation of how people work together to create communities, social networks and how molecular structures build.
It is also a play on cloud computing which relies on the sharing of resources rather than storing information on local servers. A wholeness or oneness is created out of the individual pieces.
Home Sweet Home
 Pantheon Manor, blanket, 2014 |
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 Untitled collage, detail,2014 |
 2615 N Spaulding_edited.jpg |
 Home Sweet Home, chair, cross stitch etail, 2014 |
 Milshire, blanket, 2014 |
 Untitled collage, 2014 |
 3335 W Diversey, blanket, 2014 |
 Home Sweet Home, chair, cross stitched, 2014d.jpg |
2014
This installation was censured by a developer created 'arts' organization that took over a now defunct local arts festival. It directly called out one of their board members who has evicted countless families from the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago.
People were actively being evicted from the apartments above my site-specific installation in one of the empty commercial spaces below. I used the opportunity to shed light on the situation.
Artists are often used as tools for gentrification to gain exposure and create 'hot' neighborhood myths for developers to artificially inflate housing market prices and displace poor people.
Time & Big Bang
 Big Bang #1, 2010 |
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 Big Bang #2, 2011 |
 Big Bang #2, 2011 |
 Tick Tock, 2011 |
 Big Bang #3, 2012 |
2010-2012
Theoretically, physicists say time started in our universe with the Big Bang. Time is an element of our life, a constant variable within the equations we use every day. We tick off the hours, minutes, days and choose how we want to spend time, make time, waste time and gain time. The subject of time is an elusive one and the more you try to wrap your brain around it, the harder it tries to escape and confuse.
In 2010, I acquired approximately 3,000 clock hands from someone who had recently purchased a clock factory and was cleaning out the old inventory.
Over two years, I create multiple iterations of site-specific installations with these clock hands at the Chicago Art Department and Hairpin Art Center. It never ceases to amaze me how interaction with an object and its meaning, symbolically or literally, creates a dialogue when put into sculptural form and that context creates further dialog with the audience.
House Home
 House Home dwellings |
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 House Home - floor plan memory sketch - Copy.gif |
2010-2014
I have moved approximately 29 times for mostly economic reasons. Photographically documenting my past dwellings and later recreating floor plans from memory was a fun project that took me on a journey to revisit each place and recall spatial memories connected to each one.
Each dwelling was a container in which my life’s events have played out. Good, bad, happy, bittersweet, devastating, elating. I am grateful to all of the wonderful people who also shared these homes with me.
100 Cups of Tea
 100 Cups of Tea, coffee shop, 2005 |
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 100 Cups of Tea, main area, 2005 |
 100 Cups of Tea, main area, 2005 |
Cobargo, NSW, Australia 2005
The Old Butter Factory turned junk collector haven for Rowan Dixon was transformed by the many found objects for sale to local artists, engineers, and movie prop people.
I spent 3 weeks there reviving the place while visiting Australia and participating in WWOOF. We drank 100 cups of Tetley tea in that unforgettable time.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions or interest in collaboration.