I am in the habit of looking everywhere for patterns; patterns emerging, forming and unraveling. Such patterns could be small details in the physical reality of my day, or the larger social structures that frame my actions. Either way, I have often felt that my job as an artist is to seek out and pay attention to these examples of daily life, the exchange between context and subject. My current work therefore presents my stake in the overlapping institutions of motherhood, public education and social services. In both the use of painted imagery and written language, I want to emphasize a constantly moving position between order and chaos, between giving and receiving, between being inside a system and outside of it.

Sometimes this process involves social dialogue and even intervention within the social patterns of my daily life, but it is largely based in a practice of personal and reflective work with visual images. I am constantly in search of a way to repurpose and transform the physical materials of my daily life, (paper bags, discarded packaging) into something that becomes elevated beyond a purely practical function. This habit is, in a way, a strategy to address the practical functions of my own labor. Like so many other women, I spend a great deal of time caring for others, addressing the needs of my students, children, community. How does making art about the practical reality of daily labor bring attention to the monumental importance of little tasks?