I love the history of old things.  I love the way age affects the look, feel, and even smell of them.  I love to rummage and collect bits and pieces of cast-off items that have outgrown their usefulness.  My grandmother Emma, mother of four in hard economic times, taught me the value of saving items others considered junk.  She did not cast them off; instead she kept them in jars and bins, sometimes allowing me to rummage through them.  I love to walk; it’s been my spiritual practice for over 20 years.  I have found in nature a sure reminder that although I am very small, I am part of something big and I belong to it.  I collect things of nature lain aside.  To me, they are beautiful.  I love the process of creating something with my hands and I especially like using old tools and old hardware when doing so.  Assemblage making satisfies me; it brings joy.  I don’t love change.  I am not good at it, for it always feels like loss.   I am learning to allow it, and even see the goodness in it through the process of making art.  Each work I create is a like a word hidden inside myself, asking to be spoken.  My building process is largely intuitive, often beginning with a container of either wood or metal, but sometimes just a single item attracts me and soon a thing made of beloved cast-offs begins to take shape.