Connect What is your favorite type of art to create?

I like to create a beautiful mess. I work with materials and processes that I can't completely control to force myself away from perfection. The randomness and serendipity present in staining, throwing, and tearing are manifestations of the uncontrolled emotions of my childhood. While I typically use the context of painting on canvas, I love painting furniture, mirrors, the floor, cardboard. Like I'm smearing my emotions across objects to make them more important.

Where do you find inspiration?

I didn't talk a lot when I was a child. My silence always seemed to be misread and ridiculed. When I started to go to school for art, people started to understand me without me having to talk. Finally being understood and accepted was such a relief. People finally had questions for me, and were interested in what I was doing. I learned to speak for myself and speak for myself confidently. I'm using that confidence to help that little kid speak now.

What would you do with $25,000?

Several years ago I was working as an oil painter doing still life and portraits. It wasn't what I wanted to be doing, but I was trapped in an abusive relationship. Getting away from that relationship was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It took almost ten years, but I have a studio again. I have to make art, I have to succeed. This money would give me the ability to devote myself full-time to my work and to invest in my dream of doing a series of large-scale paintings.