I draw food because I am interested in my relationship with food.In an American culture of excess, food is viewed by many as a source of anxiety; and a constant stream of new diet crazes, meal replacement bars/ shakes, quick fix pills and a variety of other products promise to make us thinner, more attractive and happier. Michael Pollan ventures that we may have a “national eating disorder” (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 2007). In an attempt to seek out the root of my own food related phobias and anxieties I choose to draw the edible. The frustration, discipline and gratification I experience through my process reflects the same "struggles" I have encountered, as a child and an adult, in reference to food.

Historically, ink has been used in scientific fields because it allows the artist to capture detail. As a scientific illustrator spends hours with a specimen in order to document it properly, I take time to draw all the specific textures of frosting or filling. By drawing from life in this manner, I am able to maintain a critical distance between myself and the subject. Spending hours with food in front of me provides a challenge: I experience temptation. Sometimes, I indulge in a bite of what I am drawing. With the taste of the sweet, fatty, “carb”-laden specimen in my mouth, the drawing becomes more difficult, yet the subject becomes repulsive. I can detect the fat melting on my tongue and the overpowering flavor of sugar. This tension between disgust/desire is a driving concept within my work.

As I record details of the objects, the activity of mark-making becomes surprisingly meditative. Thought becomes entangled in a build up of marks. Written words reflecting memories, sensations, and random mantras cross my mind and make their way to the surface of the drawing. Sometimes an automatic process allows the text to find its way onto open areas of the paper, becoming a bold and readable statement that I wouldn’t otherwise say aloud. Marks and the white of the paper fluctuate between emptiness and fullness. At times, the drawing itself gradually consumes the paper as I seek to pinpoint the source of guilt and desire.

I am interested in creating work that is socially critical, yet quirky, humorous or witty. I find abstractions and representation simultaneously within my surroundings; I seek to decipher where the two blend together. Duality (especially that of attraction/repulsion) is integral to my body of work. I am inspired by many contemporary artists and writers, from Michael Pollan to David Sedaris, Jenny Holzer to Daniel Zeller. Dutch landscape drawings from the 16th and 17th century, as well as Asian landscape prints and drawings (ca. 1400-1900) have influenced me to experiment with mark making and with an array of line qualities.