A: My work is primarily found-image collages. So, I go out to estate sales, book sales and anywhere I can find material to cut up and play with. The style is contemporary mass-media images mixed with older, vintage imagery. I piece one together every day.
Q: Really, every day?
A: Yes, I make a collage every day. I make it, scan it and post it to the web every day. I've done it every day for almost the last two years, now.
Q: That's more than a little prolific, for any artist.
A: Yes, but I'm really committed to doing it.
Q: How'd you get started?
A: I'm from Troy, and I went to a very prestigious art school, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and had the chance to take a lot of classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is nearby. I was exposed to a lot of different kinds of art. I was saturated and actually overwhelmed by it, and when I completed my degree I stopped making art. I lost my desire to make it for about five years. I did some small things, but nothing intensive, for all that time. Then I wanted to start again, but in a way that I couldn't become too attached to it.
Q: What do you mean?
A: I needed something that would allow me to not over-think the whole process. I thought if I could use the materials I found around me in my everyday life, it would allow me not to dwell on what I was doing and just do it — not think too much about it, just go. So, what I had around was old books from college, lots of magazines, tape and scissors — and I just figured, I'll start here and see what happens. I did one, posted it online and only a few friends saw it. The next day, I woke up and thought, "I need to do another one today," and I just continued week after week, month after month. I'll be rounding 700 soon — it'll be two years in October. I haven't missed a day.
Q: Has your online following grown beyond those first few friends?
A: People started finding them from all over the world. I didn't do any advertising, I just used hashtags based on whatever I had in the image. So if there was a mountain in it, it was #mountain, if a woman or a bear, #woman, #bear, whatever. At this point, I've got about 1,000 Instagram followers, and I just opened it up on Facebook.
Q: Who are your inspirations?
A: I'm really inspired by the whole Dada art movement, an avant-garde and abstract movement in Germany in the early part of the 20th century — and by Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, a lot of the people who really became the first collage artists. They did the same thing, making art from what they had lying around. Duchamp especially did that. I guess that was the origination of the whole idea behind my project — which I don't see ending, by the way. I'd like to make a collage every day for the rest of my life.
Q: So is this kind of regular, prolific output an outgrowth of your personality?
A: No, kind of just the opposite. I tend to really over-think things and be overly critical, set overly high standards and not get things finished. So I think of a lot of my collages as just rough drafts, and I'll get through them and post them just to get it out there and move on.
Q: Do you consciously pursue those themes?
A: No, it's very intuitive. I don't decide to pick an issue like, say, world hunger or something and develop it — I just sit and look at the images around me, and trust whatever is around me will seep into my unconscious. And in my experience, that's what happens. The piece becomes about what was happening around me, what was going on right then — but it's not from me sitting down with some strident view in mind.
Q: What's your day job?
A: I'm out of the proud store artists at your local Trader Joe's in Kettering. It's a very flexible place to work, if you're an artistic person. There are three artists, and we do all the hand-done signs you see all over the store. But also, the collage is an every-day job. I don't work at the store every day, but I always do a collage.
Q: So, you mentioned that it makes you refocus your everyday life. How has daily art-making affected the framework of your life?
A: It's almost like an exercise you really love — I feel more myself when I collage every day. I'm more able to be creative and express myself in a way that is really vital for me to be myself, if that makes sense. It adds value to who I am, but it also centers me. And I think that when you do something that gives you a sort of tangible result every day, it's easier to see how you're transforming, changing, progressing. You inherently create a body of work, or a style without really thinking about it, when you're just in present moment. It's a really powerful way of transforming over time.
Q: How do think you'll translate all this into a TED talk?
A: I think all inspiration is about allowing you do something you didn't think was possible before. I'm intrigued by the idea that you already have everything you need to be creative — you just need to keep doing it. Maybe it's not something huge or profound, but still, some kind of transformation happens. This is just the way I've chosen to do it in my life. Maybe sharing that idea will be kind of cool.
Q: You'll be showing some of your collages, too.
A: Right, but I don't want to overload. Maybe 10 to 15? I want to talk more about the process, how I got to this point.
Q: What do you like about TED?
A: I think TED is important in any community, especially one like ours that's reinventing itself. There's nothing like getting in there and opening your eyes to what's going on on around you.
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