
Stylistically, the whimsical (Florine Stettheimer, Wes Anderson) and mystical bordering on dark (Tim Burton, Guillermo del Toro) most resonate with me, I think because I had a very rich inner life as a child with invisible friends and whole imaginary universes that helped me deal with stress and trauma. In earlier work, I used a lot of assertive and sometimes surreal colors (partly because I'm colorblind) and Matisse like forms. They made me cringe internally because I knew they were driven in part by my need to speak more loudly and be heard. More recently, the saturated hues have given way to more texture and subtlety, but I still find it irresistible to inject a pop of color in there somewhere.

Topically, a lot of my inspiration comes from working through internal issues. Some paintings came straight from dreams or metaphors for real life relationships. Other pieces, like an ancestor worship table I made of steel shaped to spell out the names of the ancestral towns and countries where my and my husband's forebears came from, immortalize key life events. Lately, I've been reflecting on questions raised by the macropolitics of the day -- like what is the value of things that people throw away or consider dross, and their humble beauty, like dirt on a forest floor or tracks left by hurried walkers. My first yarn piece was inspired by the seeming demographic cliff that America is headed toward, when the Census Bureau tells us white Americans will no longer be in the majority after 2044, which has raised many objections from demographers who question what it even means to label someone white, or black, or Asian etc. in a world of mixed heritages and cultural experimentation.
