I had a mystical experience with a washer. You know, the metal ring that fits between the joints of two pipes.

I was in my early twenties at the time, walking a familiar route on my way home from work. I was zoned out and trying to decide if I would buy a Paglia’s pizza since I was in the parking lot already. I stopped, turned around and retraced my steps. At my feet was a metal washer, I picked it up, wondering what had prompted me to come back for it. I looked intently at the nicks and scratches on its surface; I noticed it was quite different on one side than the other, that it contained many colors, silver grey, black, horsefly green. I saw a history of shoes and tires, stones, weather and hands. I slipped it into my pocket. Thus began my conversation with my muse, refuse. I have no doubt that the washer spoke to me, winked at me, invited me to go deeper.

For the last 20 years I have been looking for, and listening to, junk I find when I am walking. I keep these things and wait to see how they will reveal their nature as I combine them with other discarded objects to create found object art jewelry.

I believe we all have a language that we speak with the unknowable. It is ours alone, indecipherable to others and sometimes, unfortunately, we do not hear it ourselves. But we do have tools with which to excavate and engage this conversation and even ways to bring it into the light of others understanding.

In my life my communication with the divine is revealed to me through my art, the relationship between myself and the inanimate, the discarded. I strive to leave stones unturned, to maintain mysteries. I follow metaphor as some follow religion. I believe wholeheartedly in the imaginary. Poetry is the way I share these mysteries with you, still hidden, but jangling keys.

“Do I contradict myself? Yes I contradict myself, I contain multitudes.” ~Walt Whitman