BYGONE PATTERNS

The idea for Bygone Patterns came to me while exploring the abandoned dreams of early American miners, ranchers, and homesteaders. I found myself examining the oxidized metals and other detritus left behind by these earlier visitors to desert wastelands, wondering how they managed to survive in places of blistering heat and episodic rainfall. And as I discovered their rusted tools, broken gears, and corroding machines, I began to wonder just what these discards’ purpose was and did they act as stand-in metaphors for settlers' lives now deserted.  

But it wasn't until I began experimenting with my raw images that I began to discern the patterns of the abstract allegories hidden within, the memories of the old one’s voices, hushed under and hidden by the inexorable advance of early American settlers. The Pictographs and iconographic symbols of southwest natives, rooted in their art, customs, and fabrics, slowly began to reveal themselves.  

Exploring abstract and symbolic connections between ancient peoples and western civilization’s first settlers significantly influences my metaphysical designs.