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How does your participation in Make-It-Pop! resonate with the exhibition's emphasis on vibrant colors, graphic styles, and ironic subject matters?

Spare parts was intentionally hand painted with primary colors to coordinate with the reflective quality of memories associates with learning the basics while siting in primary school desk.

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What are your aspirations for viewers' takeaways from experiencing your artwork showcased at the Make-It-Pop! group exhibition at InLiquid Gallery?

Take away the mindset to keep an open mind. To remember we are always learning. We can learn so much about each other and enjoy exploring one another's similarities and differences by sitting and listening.

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Could you discuss your process from its initial conception, to the collection of abandoned carts, and then the assembly of their parts in order to create your work on view, Spare Parts and other works from the Cartrageous series?

The overall concept of Cartrageous FUNctional furniture is symbolic. In our throw away culture, a majority mindset is to "buy another" instead of taking the time to repair or fix objects. Our landfills spill over. Trash is mindlessly thrown on the street. As a child nothing was thrown away until it has been given so many alternative lives there was nothing left for it to give. My Father and Grandparents modeled how to value and have pride in what we owned, to care for everything with respect: from clothing to tools to the animals we owned and the land we farmed. I was taught to have an eye that see's beyond face value to the potential of what else something- or someone could have

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As you mentioned, the shopping cart is the most iconic image of our consumer-based culture and the “Cartrageous” furniture series is intended to visually challenge the viewer to question and assess individual ideas about consumerism, power, and privilege. Is your repurposing a critique, playful subversion, or a mix of the two?

In my professional career working in State Hospitals and low income public schools I witnessed the closing of communities. Of people living in those Institutions being tossed to the street. Of school communities underfunded because the children's parents were low income earners. I'll never understand how we seem to accept this as status quo. Every child is our countries future. Our education will benefit when we work to understand Instead of judging one another for the color of skin or income level. We could be lifting one another up instead of walking by the homeless people we see every day as they lie wrapped in a blanket on the sidewalk. We seem to have abandoned innate human qualities of compassion and empathy. This is why I chose years ago to contribute a portion of aales to the homeless meals a friend of mine prepares at Feast Incaminate. I am not affiliated with this group but I respect their approach of serving the homeless in a sit down meal with table cloths.

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You mention that both friends and strangers have brought you abandoned carts after your first pieces were created for your furniture series. Has this community-sourced aspect changed your perception of your artistic process?

I appreciate the "gifts" of the carts as they have come to me. It leaves me with a melancholy smile a bit of joy to know others too have taken to the idea that something tossed away can be transformed, a sense of sadness we collectively have yet to  make the jump to helping others get off the street to transform our communities.