Notes, stories and observations

Through a process of collecting images, working from direct observation, and obsessive rendering, I create invented natural histories. The vaguely familiar flora and fauna in my drawings recall the past- referencing antique scientific illustration- while suggesting an uneasy impending future. Lush detail invites the viewer to look closer, asking him or her to investigate what might appear repulsive or threatening. Questions are gradually raised about our relationship with the natural world.


Here is a collection of stories, experiences and observations which have impacted my work and psyche over the years. More to come...

  • In my early childhood, I had a reoccurring dream of giant slugs, snails and worms taking over my backyard.
  • In elementary school, I took frequent trips to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, where I was both repulsed and intrigued by the tank of sand worms. They're found off the coast of Baja; I know very little about them but they must have inspired a scene from Tim Burton's Beetlejuice.
  • My first-grade teacher, Marcie, had a tank of axolotls in her classroom. I remember making a drawing with the title "I wish I were an axolotl."
  • I used to wait for my cat, Moss, to yawn so that I could look deep into his mouth.
  • I got my first camera, a little Olympus film camera, at around age nine. I enjoyed taking photos of dead squirrels and mice.
  • While walking along Bryant Street with my mom, I saw a severed bird's head on the sidewalk.
  • My childhood friend Chris had a slumber party at her house. She had a goldfish in a bowl on her bookshelf. I awoke in the morning to find that the fish had jumped and landed inches from my pillow.
  • In certain parts of Los Angeles after heavy rain, the lack of adequate drainage causes minor flooding, and fat, pink earthworms surface on the sidewalk, often squashed by passing feet-- an unsettling sight between the shiny cars and manicured lawns.
  • It's common for city birds to slam head-on into shiny office building windows, mistaking the reflection for sky.
  • Over a period of two or three weeks in LA, I witnessed all of the following: a bird with a wounded wing staggering into traffic, slowly but surely making it to the other side; a bat dropped by vicious birds into the street in Santa Monica, feet from where I stood; a blackbird attacked by crows and dropped in the grass where I ate lunch.
  • While studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia, I visited the tiny Phillip Island off the coast of Victoria. A beach there was littered with dead birds, some of them dismembered and barely recognizable. I later learned that a small percentage of the island's birds are born with a genetic defect, keeping them from intuitively knowing how to land. They fly off the nearby cliffs and drop to the beach; the unlucky ones get pecked apart by seagulls.
  • In Melbourne, while waiting at a bus stop, I was dive-bombed by a magpie. I later read in the newspaper that several people had been hospitalized nearby due to magpie attacks.
  • A year or so later, in New Zealand, I was again dive-bombed by a magpie; I was able to run to safety.
  • In San Francisco, I was attacked twice by blackbirds near Jackson Park.
  • The cane toad epidemic in Queensland, Australia has been an ongoing interest for me. See the hilarious documentary Cane Toads.
  • I've also paid attention to the possum epidemic in New Zealand. The book Goodbye Possums goes over several ways to kill them-- they kill native birds and destroy vegetation-- and includes several recipes for possum meat.
  • I was attacked by an ape while visiting the rock of Gibraltar.
  • My friend Juli battled an angry muskrat in her backyard in Queens, New York. She caught him with a net, hoping to subdue him; he only grew angrier and peed all over her.
  • In 2009, I read a brief news article about a man in Florida who had been trapped under a fallen buffalo head from his trophy wall. The man had been asleep in his La-Z-Boy. He was able to reach for his cell phone from under the buffalo head to call for help; the man was unharmed.

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