When I began working, my first studio was the beach and a stack of magazines. I liked the Tarot collages I made so much that I decided it was important to continue exploring my affinity for images along with other media. My second studio was an oversized Hello Kitty diaper bag that I found at the Goodwill. It had many pockets and a large body that I filled with pictures and pages torn out of sources, chalks and glues, glitter, kids craft stuff, found objects and toys. I was crashing at a friend’s place then while looking for my own apartment and I loved being able to cut and paste and then whisk everything back into the bag!

Many of my first projects were cluttered, cramped, overdone pieces. I wanted to try using each sort of material I encountered, and though many of the finished products were not what I wanted, they were explorations of all the kinds of art media I could find. Many were assemblages on old blocks. I was really inspired by artists who used the idea of collage on objects and in cigar boxes. I pretty much tried anything. I made literally hundreds of pieces, some of them inspired, some just awful. I displayed the good and the ugly together for Voodoo: Art Can Bend Your Mind. I even made voodoo dolls out of found materials. For my debut show, I really wanted to convey the idea of the voodoo alter, using any and every found material and lots of it to create a magical record. We crammed my paper collages, assemblages, and paintings stylishly onto every available surface, including the toilet!