Dollar Store detritus is a democratic denominator. It is affordable and portable. It is giftable and often disposable and I collect it. Ceramic cats with sardonic smiles, unnameable semi-human creatures, and bright plastic flowers – their saccharine sappiness tickles my imagination. Sentimental and banal, broken dolls and chipped tchotchkes are unaware of their imperfections. They remain unaffected by a sad history that has left them somehow scarred.

In paint my reassembled jumble of junk creates its own reality. Fake foliage becomes a fairy-tale forest and almost forgotten-momentos of nothing in particular take on new lives. In this other world the natural scale of things is up-ended, and common kitsch becomes a vehicle for drama.

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