Unexpected Canvas

As I dug through my seemingly endless stash of supplies, I came across a pair of comic book shoes I created more than a decade ago.

I can still picture myself sitting in the living room of my old apartment, carefully cutting individual images from a comic book with a razor blade. Each fragment was decoupaged onto the shoes by hand, transforming an ordinary pair into something entirely different. Every angle revealed a new image and a new detail.

At the time, I wasn't thinking about artistic themes or defining a creative practice. I was simply following an idea that excited me.

Looking at the shoes now, I realize they reveal something about the way I've always approached making art. Long before I was creating collage collections or hunting for vintage treasures at flea markets, I was drawn to the idea of using unexpected surfaces. I wasn't interested in the shoes themselves as much as I was interested in what they could become.

Finding them again felt particularly timely.

For the past several months, I've been immersed in a new collage collection, working primarily on canvas panels. While I enjoy the structure of that format, rediscovering these shoes reminded me that some of my favorite projects begin when I look beyond a traditional canvas.

Lately, I've been working on a vintage camera that will become the second piece in my Found Objects series. As I've spent time with it, I've found myself thinking less about what it was designed to do and more about its potential as a surface, a sculpture, and a vessel for storytelling. Finding these shoes felt like a reminder that this isn't a new direction at all. It's a thread that has been running through my work for years.

Sometimes old projects reveal things we couldn't see when we first made them.

The materials have changed, my process has evolved, and my work has become more intentional. But the fascination remains the same: finding beauty and possibility in unexpected canvases.