I think of my still-lifes as meditation on the human experience. An important part of my process involves searching for objects that can be interpreted as having some sort of history or can be manipulated to invoke certain kind of feeling. They often can be seen as representing the human body, state of mind, or religious ceremony. Cloth, for example, can speak of concealment or secrecy, religious ceremony, or death, but can also act as skin - the web of folds and creases forming a record of the passage of time. Old nails can be associated with martyrdom (as in the Catholic religion), but also in some African religious practices old nails and screws were driven into wooden sculptures as a means to deliver prayers.
I like to treat the image as a window to some infinite world, often dark and uncomfortable, but also heroic in a sense that it dares to be beautiful.
