My work explores the ways that humans alter and arrange our surroundings to communicate emotions and designate value. I observe my immediate environment, focusing on the more subtle ways we communicate using flowering plants, for example in an individual's garden, a university park, or even a shopping center entrance. I also research formalized, even ritualized disciplines like Ikebana flower arranging, botanical garden displays, historical decorative art traditions that used botanical forms as resources, and artists who subtly alter spaces and our perceptions of space. By adapting the formal languages of these disciplines, and applying them to the arrangement of sculptural objects that I create, I intend to evoke an emotional sense or feeling in the viewer while calling attention to the fact that the experience is constructed.</p
