Portfolio: Artwork

Ennui Free consists of a printed sign and a website. The user hangs the sign up in a prominent place and marks off the days spent ennui free. On bad days, the user goes to the website for suggestions on how to carry on. The user can also contribute his own suggestions.

The Terribly Helpful Sign is a simple device to help the user develop awareness of and display a statement about his/her emotional state.

The Perspectiflex is a simple hand-held device that helps the user develop some flexibility of thought. When the user becomes aggravated with someone, he uses the device to get a possible reason for the annoying person’s behavior, helping the user to open his mind and lessen the feelings of displeasure.

The Ardor Arbiter is a simple device wherein the user gives out citations of sincerity to others, using the enclosed stickers and magic marker. This helps the user develop his/her ability to detect sincerity and thus become better at eventually judging his/her own.

The Emotional Openness Signal Kit is designed so that the user may easily improvise his/her own means of communicating the onset of a moment of unguardedness. The signs, once separated, can be used by day (4 color version) or by night (phosphorescent version). Pins are provided to pin the signals to clothing if need be.

The Vision Enabler is a device to give the user a chance to look at his/her life with a loving perspective. The user is encouraged to look at an online animation that is only visible when looked at through the lens of the Vision Enabler.The message enclosed therein is inspirational in nature.

The Associativity Charm™ is one of my portrait products, made for a friend who was feeling way too far from anything called home. It is intended to be used as a sensorial aid: when feeling lonely or out of place, you brush your fingertips on the rug’s surface and remember you are not only welcome, you are already here.

Springing from the fields of package design and conceptual art, Monstress Activities addresses modern worries and hopes in a humorous, thought-provoking way. This box set of 5 different products combine into one distinctly joyful and fun proposal for a different perspective on life.

One (1) Bubble, Never Bursting, 1999

I took one Polaroid a day for several years in order to learn photography.

A woodcut figure study I did after my house washed away in a flood. I had to rebuild my portfolio to get into grad schools quickly.

The first valentine I ever did, after the flood of 1995. I printed them in my bedroom and gave them to each person I knew.

I draw constantly, but it is not a factor in my formal work normally as my products are my main focus.

Chainlink Study 2

Chainlink Study 1

A case bound / accordion hybrid, Crush* is a study of the plays on language I used to conceal my ardent feelings for another woman before I came out.

Ennui Free consists of a printed sign and a website. The user hangs the sign up in a prominent place and marks off the days spent ennui free. On bad days, the user goes to the website for suggestions on how to carry on. The user can also contribute his own suggestions.

This piece was developed as a print piece for the back of the program I designed for the CSUN Tomorrowland show. I have had a few different ideas for the Game of Love, so I decided to send out a prototype for user testing by volunteers.

Here & Now wass made up of stickers, website,and phone app. The stickers serve as prompts to snap to the Here & Now to develop present-mindedness. The user took a picture of the sticker in use and thus records his/her Here & Now for others to see on the website (http://monstresshereandnow.com/).

In the development of Here & Now, I put together testing kits and sent them to galleries in Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York City to be tested. Participants entered their data via a website, and I used the data to form the final structure of the piece.

The Terribly Helpful Sign is a simple device to help the user develop awareness of and display a statement about his/her emotional state.

The Perspectiflex is a simple hand-held device that helps the user develop some flexibility of thought. When the user becomes aggravated with someone, he uses the device to get a possible reason for the annoying person’s behavior, helping the user to open his mind and lessen the feelings of displeasure.

The Vision Enabler is a device to give the user a chance to look at his/her life with a loving perspective. The user is encouraged to look at an online animation that is only visible when looked at through the lens of the Vision Enabler.The message enclosed therein is inspirational in nature.

The Emotional Openness Signal Kit is designed so that the user may easily improvise his/her own means of communicating the onset of a moment of unguardedness. The signs, once separated, can be used by day (4 color version) or by night (phosphorescent version). Pins are provided to pin the signals to clothing if need be.

The Ardor Arbiter is a simple device wherein the user gives out citations of sincerity to others, using the enclosed stickers and magic marker. This helps the user develop his/her ability to detect sincerity and thus become better at eventually judging his/her own.

The rarest of valentines, this device was a small box with a heart inside that would spin to reveal a Y for yes or N for no when you asked a question and held up the attached wand.

The Thought Hawker™ is one of my portrait products: I make products which come in a flash of revelation, a moment when I see what an individual I have met either needs or should patent, personality-wise. These portraits are never meant to be mean spirited, by the way.

The Associativity Charm™ is one of my portrait products, made for a friend who was feeling way too far from anything called home. It is intended to be used as a sensorial aid: when feeling lonely or out of place, you brush your fingertips on the rug’s surface and remember you are not only welcome, you are already here.

A portrait product I made for a friend who could not stop taking herself down.

A portrait product I made for someone who could not stop blinding herself with dreams of perfection. I hoped the mask would help her dream of perfection then live her life in a present-minded fashion.

Springing from the fields of package design and conceptual art, Monstress Activities addresses modern worries and hopes in a humorous, thought-provoking way. This box set of 5 different products combine into one distinctly joyful and fun proposal for a different perspective on life.

from Monstress Activities

The printed box for Monstress Activities

One (1) Bubble, Never Bursting, 1999

Signifier of Love, 1999

TV Cure, 1998

Perspective Charm, 1998

1998

Heart on a sString, 2013

The view from straight-on…

….and the secret message.

I was so tired of Barbara Kruger just spouting off without revealing anything meaty and personal, so I studied her technique and did some studies using it as inspiration.