Für Elise 1993

I met a girl right after moving to San Francisco, a girl named Elise with whom I fell tragically, unrequitedly in love. I made this for her, just before I let my heart get broken, as a Christmas gift and it became the first of the many object collage works that followed. Für Elise is now part of the collection of Ms. Tammy Derrigan of St. Louis and consists of an antique photograph, a cherry stem tied in a knot by the tongue of the object of my misplaced affection, nails pulled from the back of a very old frame, Prestype on antique paper reading, "In Other Words", one birth-control pill marked with the number 23, a bit of rice paper, a nail upon which hang two locks of hair (Elise's and mine) molded with hair gel into interlocking rings and a small piece of paper with a date on it - the date I met Elise.