Make Pretend Collection: A Rumpus Begins 10x10"

Make Pretend Collection: A Rumpus Begins. oil on panel 10x10”.


Max: Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!


…And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are




I paint the creatures that have wandered through my heart and mind my whole life. The animals, my monsters, represent the wild hearted spirit within us all. Serving as analogues for feelings, these creatures help me traverse the flotsam and jetsam of my childhood, telling my own stories and  offering an escape from the trappings we create for ourselves.
Understood in the context of my lived experience, painting has always been the getaway from the chaos around me. After people, animals are a relief.
While my work reflects my own childhood, I wanted my summer show to also bring people to recollect their own and that is why I began this collection.
This collection is for you.


“I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You're going to trip over that for a good part of your life.”
― Maurice Sendak


There is a fairytale left in all of us.
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.
This is a preview for my summer 2022 show Pink Lions Paper Crowns