We Don’t Need Those Men No More | Various Soft & Hardwoods, Paint | 50" x 12" x 8", Repositionable | 2016 

We Don’t Need Those Men No More (Detail) | Various Soft & Hardwoods, Paint | 50" x 12" x 8", Repositionable | 2016 

Artist Statement: My work depicts the rural milieu of yard sale trinkets, fallen barns, jokes, family, and community. We Don’t Need Those Men No More reflects the provisional, make-do aesthetic employed by everyday, small-town people in their attempts to repair, mend, or otherwise improve their physical surroundings. The well-worn mechanical arm references discarded construction equipment, resigned to rust upon the completion of its duty—we can’t afford to fix it, but we can’t afford to throw it away. I build with my hands, I rearrange, and I destroy. Found materials, hand-wrought whatnots, and the high and low extremes of craftsmanship are of historical and geographical importance to me. I embrace folk and contemporary craft aesthetics in order to construct my own particular flavor of nostalgic pseudo-primitivism. The sculptures become physical manifestations of memories, rumors, and tall tales cobbled together with scraps of discarded wood and the abrasions of rich history.