Learning to see

My relationship with objects came from somewhere else entirely. Weekends with my grandfather, walking flea markets slowly, learning how to look. He was an antiquer — always searching, always noticing. Nothing was dismissed too quickly. A worn edge, a forgotten object, something overlooked by others — these were not flaws, they were stories.

I didn’t realize then that he was teaching me how to see value where others didn’t.

Looking back, those mornings shaped more than just my eye; they shaped my approach to making. Surface and history. Fragments and presence. What began as quiet observation became a way of working, a way of seeing, a way of understanding material. Long before I knew the words found object or assemblage, I was already collecting fragments.