Nominated by Northern Illinois University Over the past few semesters the work I’ve been focusing on has been very experimental. I have been using different techniques and materials in less common ways to create images. I have been experiencing an unexpected artist block and yet I have the urge to keep creating. This has led me in another direction with my work. Some of this creates a mess and some of it has unexpected beauty. The screen prints I have been making use unusual techniques of painting ink onto the screen and semi mixing different colors to create marbled and mixed/ melting textures. The next process is to add more layers and mixtures on top of the first. This creates even more chaos and uncertainty in the pieces outcome. By using these haphazard and undetermined ways of creating images beautiful and unexpected results happen. I have also been experimenting with glitter mono-prints. For this process I set up a sturdy acrylic paper with borders like your typical print and then use different methods of adhering glitter to the surface. I started experimenting with glitter a couple years ago because of its cheap and yet undeniable beauty. I’m fascinated by viewers enjoyment of something so anti-fine art. I have always loved how light reflects off its surface and how you cannot ever fully remove it from a space. I have started to cut into older less successful prints and have found ways to chine-colle’ them to other prints. This is something I hope to explore further as a process in the next couple months. I have often been inspired by the duality of chaos and perfection and I think this is starting out as a great way to explore it further. Image: Glitter Forest, 2016