Joseph Cornell

Joseph Cornell is up there for one of the first artists I fell in love with and whose name never left my mind. I first saw his shadow boxes when I was 15 years old working a summer job as an art + family education intern at the Art Institute of Chicago. That job probably changed my entire life! His work was so magical, and melancholy. I was so amused and captivated by his way of arranging these little worlds that felt like keys to different tiny worlds inside myself that I had sensed but couldn't open. Someone once said that the real art is how we are changed by a piece, what stays with us and how that changes how we interact with others.

Joseph Cornell showed me that we can always find magic through intentional arrangement, we can always see a new story if we look a little more gently + closer.