I create patterns derived from my photographic documentation of vernacular shrines as well as established pilgrimage sites. Details from garden grottos, roadside altars, feasts, wunderkammer and the work of other artists inform my process of constructing and photographing my own altars. I photograph altar imagery on location, mostly in New Orleans where I have also documented the Mardi Gras Indian suits and "masking Indian" on St. Joseph's night. I share a predilection for dense surfaces and visual overload that I observe in the beaded suits, Vodun altars and the St. Joseph tables. The resulting surface designs employ a horror vaccui aesthetic with compressed or ambiguous space, and minute textural detail.
