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When someone learns that I'm an artist I'm usually asked; "What's your medium?"  My response is often met with an inquisitive look.  It generally generates more questions than answers. 

To date, I have not found a single word that describes my art and art making process more accurately than “bricolage”. 

Several years ago, I posted a photo of myself standing in my cluttered basement studio.  My good friend and fellow artist, Mike O’Shea, commented on the post, stating that it “looks like the markings of a mad bricoleur”.   I thought; “what’s a bricoleur?” and then proceeded to do a google search.  I learned a bricoleur is a person who engages in bricolage.  Which lead me to delve further down the “rabbit hole”.

I learned the bricolage is a term used across many arenas, including anthropology, cultural studies, literature, design, music and art, and generally refers to the act of constructing an artifact.  It’s the process by which people acquire objects from across social divisions to create new cultural identities.

Wikipedia defines bricolage as a word adopted from the French that means “the process of improvisation in a human endeavor. The word is derived from the French verb bricoler ("to tinker").” On the practical level, bricolage takes objects that have been used before and reorganizes them within a new perspective.

A few months ago my friend Brian passed away unexpectantly.  A few days after his passing I stopped by his home to pay homage and to comfort his grieving partner, Kathy.  While there the topic of my art came up.  When I mentioned that bricolage was my medium, Kathy's sister got up and left the room.  When she returned she handed me a scrap piece of paper and said "I think this is meant for you".  Written on the paper, in Brian handwriting, was a note that read; "Bricolage - The remixture, reconstruction, and reuse of separate materials or artifacts to produce new meaning and insight."

Those definitions rang true for me and my art making process, particularly the one left by Brian.

Over the past couple decades, I have been creating art that incorporates the notion of art as artifact and vice-a-versa.  I am a storyteller. I create using an assortment of seemingly unrelated materials (salvaged goods, artifacts, specimens and remnants of the past) to speak my truth and to convey my understanding of the world around us.  My work often touches on the social, political and personal, with a desire to generate a dialogue that speaks to current events while referencing historic happenings.  Many of my works have multiple layers of coded messaging.  The placement of objects, the use of text, etched glass and symbolism, as well as the titles are all designed to allow the viewer to discover and translate its deeper and sometimes multifaceted meaning.

Simply put, bricolage is something created from a diverse range of available things, while puttering about.