Artificialia: Here are the objects we make or alter for use, for pleasure, for remembrance. This category is typically for antiques and works of art. However, I wanted to focus on the smaller treasures, the craft that imbues material with a human touch.

Collage - Part of my collecting, like many artists, includes scraps, trimmings, and fragments of old or “failed” works. They are saved for a rainy day, an unknown purpose, or for exercises. I keep the remains of old photographs (silver gelatin, lumen, cyanotype, etc.) for collages. It is an exercise I do when I am feeling trapped in my work and need to play with some building blocks of color.

Instant Photo - An experiment from days gone by. In my undergrad I had a slight fascination with destroying materials, seeing how photochemistry would react to change. I suppose that is still true today, but I’m not in the process of microwaving instant film anymore.

Blue Glass Bottle - Blue is the color of the universe, the atmosphere. It is one of light’s oldest children. When is blue not blue? The bottle becomes an oculus when viewed through a scanner, losing its color in the battle between refractive surfaces.

Rock - Another form of blue. It is a rock coated in cyanotype solution, but without an image exposed onto it. The texture of the rock becomes the image, tinted by a curious hand.

Mug - An object that has been loved. There is a crack in it, almost invisible, save for when filled with liquid. Yet, it holds together. The painted hummingbirds and flowers still have life in them.

Box - It is broken. The box cannot fully contain things as it once did, but now it can take on new life. It could be a little theater or reliquary, the window makes it more complete and gives new purpose.

Naturalia: Animals are often featured in this category, taxidermy and skeletal trophies of adventure and conquest. I am not a hunter, and it is not a part of my practice to work with animals. I appreciate and relish my moments with fauna, however fleeting they are, but the quiet pleasure of a wildflower or the intricate patterns of fungi are a greater puzzle to me.

Quartz - Shining rock and crystal, little deposits of mineral that refract and absorb the light. The center is inaccessible, a cloudy world that you hold in your palm.

Rose, Dianthus, and Yellow Aster - Sometimes I will buy bouquets, just to add a little spring to my day. These flowers are ephemera, commercial, something I’m supposed to discard when that precious color has faded and the scent has mellowed. I love the transformation they undergo, and how precious they become.

Daffodils - Abundant spring, popping up out of the ground to gaze at the sun before they fade into their funeral shrouds. The yellows of joy and rebirth are short lived, giving way to green and brown.

Lichen - Intricate strands, veins, hairs woven together, a true microcosm. One of the few beings that if placed back into the natural scene would reattach and grow. Their pillow-soft resilience decorates and overcomes the forest, from the floor to the trees.

Moss - The eternal being, not dead, but sleeping. This object out of all others might outlive the cabinet. Technology can fail, collections are dispersed, but all this little organism needs is a few drops of water.

Bark - There is a tree outside my studio that is constantly dropping branches. This fragment retained the shape of its branch, a clue, hinting at its past life. It is now an object of ceremony, a hollow shell, something that has the potential to hold. It is no longer skin, but fully realized vessel.

Exotica: The faraway, mysterious, and as the name suggests, “exotic.” This section focuses on objects that have an unknowable or mystical quality. Some items are more personal than others, but each holds a charm, a potential for imagination, for times and places I have never experienced.

Corncob - I took this from Gettysburg Military Park, a place of extreme violence now decorated with silent stone memorials and perfectly preserved farmhouses. What of the corn? Is it commercial, decorative? This broken cob contains more of the history of violence and war than the austere horses and soldiers standing over it.

Wishing Stone - This is one of the oldest objects in the cabinet. Not just in terms of when the rock was formed, but when it became a part of my collection. I’ve had this stone since I was eight years old. My father bought it while on a layover in Ireland. It is a Connemara Irish Marble Wishing Stone, carved from the mountains of Galway. It is a marketable item, a trinket, a charm. It is my talisman and holds more magic for me than any other object I possess.

Silver Gelatin Print - This is a landscape I will never know. I know of places like this, but I have no way of identifying where this was taken. I collect photographs and photographic materials/instruments from thrift shops and markets. There is a history to these relics, and even though I have not experienced the memories they capture, I can imagine myself inside of them.

Cabinet Cards - These photographs were meant to be traded. Like the carte de visite that came before, cabinet cards are representations to remind others what you look like. Portraits tell stories. I wonder who these people are, not to uncover their true stories, but to cast them as characters in an atemporal theater.