In my studio practice, I use a number of materials such as paint, photography, color pencils, textbooks, scrap paper, and more. The artist Maggi Hambling said, "Make everything an experiment, otherwise it's dead." I see this as a reminder to play, have fun, and try new things in artmaking. I hop around subjects and materials, nothing in the studio dies, always learning from other artists and books, and life. 

 Sally Man said in her memoir Hold Still, “As for me, I see both beauty and the dark side of things; the loveliness of cornfields and full sails, but the ruin as the well.” We need to find the beauty in everything; there is beauty in my condition, a subject matter. I have a list of health conditions, the most prominent of which is Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID). I have created work that represents my illness, like my photo series Invisible Disabilities. My work is also therapeutic to my illness, being an outlet to express those emotions and burdens that come with my illness and treatment. Art makes time pass during my weekly hour infusion treatment, this treatment I do at home, and it has become designated studio time. Other subject matters in my work are landscapes, abstract compositions, and the human form. Just like Man, I find a raw connection to the land around me. 

Other artists like Henri Matisse, Kiki Smith, Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and Elizabeth Murray have greatly influenced me. Van Gogh's swirly colors and Elizabeth Murray’s bold painting encourage me to see beyond my eyes and see with my body and mind. Matisse faced intestinal cancer, leaving him confined to a wheelchair after surgery. Frida Kahlo also suffered from physical illness after contracting polio and a bus accident years later. Both artists are an inspiration to me because they kept working, creating art despite the limits they had. My abstract work challenges me to keep working, to not be held up by the final work, but to let the process heal, restore, and keep me moving. Abstract art doesn’t have to be one thing or anything. It can be just me, in the studio, painting with medication being pumped into me, treating my CVID. 

I have experimented with the human form for many years, having a body that doesn’t always function properly makes you think about the meaning of our physical form. Are we organic forms living in our environments, or is our human form who we are and what phase we are in life? I think we are our physical self, but also a part of our individual self. We grow and change physically, emotionally, and personally, like the change from childhood to adulthood. We are the makeup of our parents and community, and share in the soul of life, and in death, our form is the remains of our physical self. My work looks are how the body reflects who we are and how we change from one stage to another.