A few years back I got advice from a friend that honestly, I did not like. He told me that if I wanted to sell work I needed to stop making art with figures or narrative work because people don't want art that challenges them. They want calming that is not confrontational. While I did not believe this, or like it, it got me to push myself a bit. I began to play with how I could call to a story or a person, without including to any figures or much information at all. This led me to create a series of chairs, and a few other things that implied a relationship to humans, but without humans. To my surprise, they were successful and sold quickly. They also got me into a few shows. So he was right. But I was sneaky...because there is still a story here. 

Personally, the empty chairs were echoing grief. There is a subtle feeling of someone missing. My Father had passed a while before I started the chair series. In the middle of the creation process, I realized that the art I was making was about his absence.  It was a way to work with, visualize and capture a feeling of loss. Creating this series pushed me out of my comfort zone in multiple ways. The subject matter was not natural for me, and yet I became a powerful symbol.