​Artist Statement
I’m currently a returning senior at UW-Milwaukee finishing my BFA in Photography. I was incredibly discouraged as an undergrad years ago before I dropped out, finding it difficult to comprehend what my peers, viewers and professors wanted from me as an artist. I also had a hard time understanding other artist’s work, especially overly raw images or images of vulgar/heavy topics. I have such a passion for documenting life and creating irreplaceable snap shots for families, clients and friends. I always felt as a photographer that my eye for photography was a gift to share, not everyone has “an eye” for taking photos and I wanted to share this with others because it feels good, a lot like giving someone a gift on the holidays. I recently discovered how rewarding this can really feel when some of my constant documenting of the dogs I walk for a living, died days after I shot photos of him. I now held something that could make someone so happy. I printed and framed them and gave them to the dog’s owner with my condolences, he had no recent pictures of his dear collie Miles and it felt so good to give him those memories of a loved one. During my sophomore year at UWM, I was experimenting with optical photographs of my baby blanket waved in front of my childhood bedroom ceiling light. A place where I had kept journals of scary thoughts, memories, experiences and ghosts; returning home for most people is a warming experience, a place of comfort, for me it’s returning to a place of nightmares and demons tangled with happiness. I had an unusual split upbringing of joy and being spoiled all my life in addition to physical, mental and sexual abuse. I could not find any other way of expressing myself as an artist until I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in September of 2012. I was meant to be a happy, caring loving person, deep inside I want to laugh and laugh and laugh, I want to make others laugh, be weird and ridiculous and truly enjoy life. I didn’t ask for this annoying disorder and I don’t really enjoy talking about it, but I do enjoy exploring unexplainable images, a metaphor for the ghostly memories that haunt the very back of my inner self. I enjoy capturing a representation of how it feels sometimes to be labeled with a “black and white” disorder. I often have trouble coping with emotions; I just recently found out that most people don’t cry during Benji, Lassie, Milo and Otis or The Fox and the Hound. So I enjoy creating images that may be hard for people to cope with, to comprehend, and to take in. It’s a representational struggle that I deal with every day that I instill on my viewers. I also would like to make a believer out of my audience someday, that ghosts can exist in memories, smells, and experiences as well as in the spirit world. Whether it’s a haunted memories or an actual ghost, I find this a ground I can lay for my viewers that they can relate with.