I think it gave me a foundation for looking at and studying things in nature. It also gave me an appreciation for time and space within my practice. I don't like feeling rushed, and my work doesn't usually benefit from it. My process can be laborious, and I want the option to take things to the next ridiculous stage without compromise. Growing up in this environment also gave me a need for quite a bit of alone time, both for my practice as well as my own well-being.

Another aspect of this was growing up in pre-smartphone times. That gave me the ability to disappear for hours at a time while my parents had no way to contact me, and it really gave me the privacy to explore and get lost in my imagination. My cousin and I used to go exploring the hills and forests across the farmland near our houses. We actually loved playing in a row of old abandoned coke ovens we found up in one of the forests. They were these crumbling, dome-like brick structures built into the earth that were used to bake coal into pure carbon (coke) for making steel. I was obsessed with them and still think about them often. I'm not sure, but it seems like many young people don't have a lot of independence these days.

I would say those two things pretty much describe what I do in the studio. Or at least it feels that way to me. There's always this push and pull of studying and drafting things like compositions, while simultaneously wanting to simply tinker around to see what happens. I like contrasts. Sometimes it feels like I've "over-done-it" in one area, and I need to go in and mess it up with a different way of working. Like if something becomes too exact/perfect/geometric, I need to add some looseness or absurdity or chance back into the work. I feel like that sums up my parents' relationship a bit too. They have distilled a sense of adaptability in me that makes it easy for me to pivot or change my mind when I need to.

Nature is around no matter where you are. Even in the city, you still have light, rain, snow, rats, cockroaches, raccoons, birds... and the list goes on. Humans are organisms just like the rest. So I've always had something to study and get obsessed with. The last apartment we lived in before moving out of the city last year had a small backyard. It was thrilling to be able to garden all summer and get my hands in the dirt again. I saw so many insects I can't name and almost couldn't even believe. I've also gotten more mosquito bites than I've had in my whole life in that tiny backyard. It doesn't take much to find nature wherever I am. Despite that, it is quite incredible how nice it feels to be living out of the city again. After years in NY, I feel like I became desensitized to noise and smells, etc. It's nice to be able to give attention to those things again.

Literally anything. I just don't think art is made in a vacuum. It's a practice that is integrated into our lives. I mean, of course I love to travel and experience new places, people, and things, but most of the time it just means living. Like getting together with friends, talking to my cat, gardening, or crying about our collapsing civilization. It doesn't need to be a grand life, just some things that are personal to myself and that I don't need to promote to the world. If you don't have a life, then what are you making work about? The art world? That's potentially the saddest thing I can imagine.

I think painting can definitely learn a lot from film lighting and atmosphere, just like photography has had an influence on painting and vice versa. I'm always getting palette and lighting inspiration from film, as well as angles and views. My work often exists as scenes, and I spend a lot of time deciding how to construct the tableau. Lighting is always important for determining the mood of each work. I often have to think of palette and lighting in the same breath, and they are decided and adjusted as one.

This is going to sound contradictory, but I don't actually always see those two things as opposites. I think it's more a matter of specificity. I'm not trying to get a bunch of different humans to feel the exact same thing from one work. It's kinda like, I want everyone to get lost in my journey to understanding my own feelings. And some people will relate, and others might even object. I have some works that I feel carry a lot of anxiety and anger, but other people have told me they are soothing to them. I think that is actually the most interesting part! It's not like you are going to look at one of my paintings and say "oh this is about when her apartment got broken into" or "This painting is about getting married." But maybe it gives you a relatable sensation that your own lived experience is going to define for you. I don't think it's bad when some art is easy to understand, it's just not always the goal of my own work.

Maybe a little of both. Whatever I'm trying to make becomes clearer the longer I work on it, but that also usually involves making it stranger. As a painting or sculpture gets farther along, I try to break the rules I've been following thus far. Usually, that means something different for each work.

I think the hardest emotions to paint are the ones that are hardest to sit with for a while, like things related to fear, anger, and sadness. But usually, in the process of doing so, they become less uncomfortable. Just getting myself to go there in the first place is the hardest part.

It’s usually just a gut feeling, but occasionally a deadline will make the decision for me.

Pretty easily! I mean, I don't think a lot of people really know the origin of how a lot of my work came about. So I just keep doing what I'm doing, and I try not to worry too much about it.

As predictable as this might be.... my current pregnancy is actually becoming a wild sea of inspiration. I'm not a person who was always dying to have children or imagining what pregnancy would be like; I actually went years without ever really thinking about it. But let me tell you, this is a trip! It's almost like stepping inside an alternative reality version of myself. It's like grappling with a bunch of fears that you voluntarily welcomed into your life. Like imagine feeling a parasite moving around inside you every day, but you're cool with it! It's truly a crazy experience that I still can't believe is how each and every person has come to exist today. It's both incredibly alienating while instilling me with a connection to millions of people I otherwise wouldn't think I'd have anything in common with.