Dad would wrap us in old quilts and pack us into the wheel barrow, bumping and rolling down the overgrown path to our river campsite. There under the stars he would tuck us into cozy nests, a fire crackling below the Lodgepole pines inside the tightly wrapped canvas of our tipi. Kodiak, the wolf-dog, kept watch outside, sending howling responses to the chorus of coyotes. Dad would trek back to the house and sometime later, long after my sister and I had returned to our dreams, he and Mom, just home from work, would quietly enter the softly glowing shelter. That beloved tipi and the rich history it represents is mine as much as it is the shared and awesome history of a people and their nations and their oppression by desperately greedy occupiers who chose to misunderstand their ways. I have learned much of their history, traditions, stories and artwork and these have influenced my appreciation for the land, the spirits of the Earth and the lessons to be learned and the inevitable consequences of the past on the present and future.

When I look at the boxes upon boxes of drawings from my childhood, a very predictable progression in children's universal drawing principles is evident in the earliest drawings. Yet the lifestyle and environmental perspectives I was exposed to enrich these ordinary artifacts making them unique narrative mementos of those formative years. My sister and I created intricately detailed treasure maps and we scavenged the woods for natural booty and weathered jewels. We imagined and narrated fantastic dramas that we played out on the prairie plains of the back yard. We described our desires through finely tuned tin cans, Walkie Talkies and diaries, shared secrets and tattled tales in childish retorts. We breezed through a richly colored childhood, slipping and sliding across slick wooden floors, roller skating under, over and between delicate silk screens, carefully sculpted forms, pastel-rendered barns, and lead pencil lunch box notes, our visual culture permeated with artistry -- Mother's careful stitches and nimble fingers draped curtains and lace, danced richly costumed puppets, bejeweled mermaids, embroidered emerald turtles and saddled velvet ponies.

Behind my house an old nursery became overgrown and wild reaching back into time to stretch limbs and leaves upward and outward. The deep holes left when young tree roots were ripped from the soil became hideouts and places to plot and ponder the next game. The old river bed where the Salt Fork once flowed was treacherous ground with rusty bathtubs and sinks, tires and broken bottles tumbling down its banks into a veritable landfill. Winter snows blanketed those piles and the memories and people that left them there. The steep banks of the riverbed were perfect sledding territory and Chessie, the Airedale would romp down the embankment as we descended with glee. Spring floods cut paths across the riverbed floor, perfect for jumping and crossing by fallen tree. Barbed wire fences long forgotten were hidden beneath honeysuckle hollows along Hayward's sheep shed. Brian, the Neighbor Boy and I would lead the way, with Sister, Laura in tow and we would jump across into the meadow, trailing behind wooly sheep as they skittered ahead. Back up across the land bridge and to the south we would weave through the tall grasses and head for the cool shade of the Sumac Grove Cemetery. The grove was spooky and romantic with the crooked trees hanging low and the long grasses below bent over from deer bedding down for the night. There, we would kneel before the solitary tombstone, rub its weathered face and wonder about who was left there and the forgotten memories in those piles in the landfill.

The year we found the fox, burnt orange from head to tail, shot dead in the nursery I knew that this place was not the sanctuary I thought I knew. It seemed every year after that the sounds of shot guns during the hunting season filled the air and the woods were no longer a safe place to play. I felt betrayed and confused when even Brian took up his gun and entered those woods as a different person. I remember changing, too, as a developing self awareness and a concerted effort to be more deliberate in my opinions, choices and artistic interests took hold. I wanted to be an environmentalist and an artist and aspired to master my creative faculties. The simmering desire for the sense of calm, the feeling of control, patience and concentration that my father embodied when he sketched in the spiral bound volume I still treasure, haunts me yet. I love to flip through the graceful sketches of Mom, sisters, cats and pups, adobes and landscapes, and places and times I never knew. It became a comforting bit of magic to have a notepad and pencil with me wherever I went as a child. There was so much potential in those blank pages; I always felt prepared for anything with my notebook in hand.

My parents and my experiences in the outdoors as a child instilled a deep respect and appreciation for the natural world and I sought to pay it homage in my artwork. I became increasingly aware, concerned and angry in my teen years about environmental issues and later, gender issues. I began to critically look at the intersection of nature and culture and its impact on the environment. These interests eventually evolved to inform my work at the college level.

Through my academic and artistic pursuits, it has become clear to me that our lived experience is constantly mediated by technology and consumer culture. It is such an innate part of our human experience that it is difficult to deconstruct the complex layers of mediation. The projection of values and desires upon our collective unconscious is a powerful cultural phenomenon that I have only recently come to investigate through my artistic practice. Growing up in rural central Illinois in a small ranch house with frugal furnishings, I often found myself longing for a more luxurious lifestyle like that of my school mates who lived in Crestwood subdivision.

While socially ascribed standards of living and class left me feeling inadequate as a child, I have grown to appreciate and cherish my simple childhood and the time spent playing outdoors nurturing a healthy imagination and an appreciation for the natural world. My childish yearning for 'more' has since transformed into a critical awareness of the construction of desire via the elaborate fiction of advertising images in American consumer culture. This crucial transformation has fueled an investigation of our cultural landscape and the appeal of suburbia. Persistent inquiry has informed my creative practice in deconstructing consumer desires, perceptions, and culture in order to question their validity and stimulate dialogue about these cultural issues.