A Forest describes many dualities in life. It can be a place of danger and asylum, wild and calm, eerie and familiar, earthly and spiritual, deadly and beautiful simultaneously. All of these dichotomies create an unknown magical environment which can lead the its inhabitants into transformative places. I have used the forest as a realm for “Strange Creatures” or beautiful mutants to live in safely without fear of judgement or societal constrictions.

The vignettes in this shrine describe the “Reverie Forest” and the characters in my Strange Creature Portarits that inhabit it. Many of the objects come from collections that I have been amassing and cataloging for years.

From 2007-2019 I created an ongoing installation in a room in my home. The space turned into a large-scale shrine made up of 1000’s of found objects. Some of the objects ended up in my “Reverie Forest Shrine” and all of them served as inspiration for it. I thought of this room as my “Eden”. It served as a sanctuary and served as a means to preserve perceived memory.