i can't remember exactly how my interest in tape began. i recall liking the playfulness it brings to the creative process. tape is a simple material that conjures a time of macaroni pictures and shrinky-dinks. as a child, i pasted together colored pieces of construction paper to create worlds of my own. i knew nothing about being adult.

growing older, i've been brought face to face with all sorts of challenging phenomena. choosing a checkout line at the market, driving behind old ladies, reacting to natural disasters, receiving parking tickets and coping with relationships. all this makes it hard sometimes to stave away negative thoughts, enticing me to scamper back to a childlike world.

i'm drawn to certain icons and symbols because they hold strange feelings of longing or nostalgia for me -- and i enjoy not knowing what associations those same images hold for others. i'm drawn to bright and odd color combinations because they make me stop and look. i'm drawn to details because i can lose myself in them. i'm drawn to beauty because that is the surest means of escape back to the drunkenness and peace of being a kid.

i hope the work helps others encounter such moments. we all deserve them.

– mitchell shernoff, 2004