Becoming increasingly aware of the political and social issues facing displaced people, I felt compelled to make art that delves into circumstances where people and animals are forcibly dislodged from their homes due to human-made disasters, dispossession of ancestral lands, and the desperate need to escape war, terrorism and oppression.

I choose materials that, during times of hardship or scarcity, might be available to someone constructing their way to safety. I gather and shape bamboo, birch and magnolia branches to suggest frameworks of strength and stability. By layering and wrapping stretched paper and cloth, a sense of containment is conveyed. Fragments of text are imbedded into some pieces to give voice to those who have been displaced. Ironically, the materials are permeable and temporary – and are not likely to survive a difficult journey. 

My intention is to create metaphoric vessels

for us all to land on safer shores.