I was born and raised in remote Northern California close to the Oregon border, where I lived in the Redwood trees on the Pacific coast. My mother grew flowers for the San Francisco Flower Market and my dad’s side of the family owned one of the largest ranches in Northern California. I spent my summers playing in nature on the family properties surrounded by domestic and wild flora and fauna. I went hunting (once—hated it). I fished. I picked and ate fresh fruit without washing it. I touched a fawn I found sleeping under a bush. I got poison oak (in that order). I swam in the river. I rode horses. I “helped” shear sheep. And it felt like those summers lasted forever.

This upbringing in Northern California plays a large part in my work. Nature and the cycle of life and death were a big part of my formative years. In college I slowly developed a passion for art history--specifically Rococo and Baroque works, likely because they emulated the drama of life and death that I was drawn to conceptually, and the overkill I loved visually. I also discovered “women’s work” at this time. Sewing and embroidering became a large part of my work and trips to craft stores for artificial flowers and fruits were common. Anything “fake” was my vice. My semi-pastoral upbringing and love of art history combined with this obsession for craft-store kitsch and, eventually, my Neo-Rococo installations, were born from the chaos.