Alisa Nordholt-Dean

Through my artwork, I am a storyteller.  I piece together old photographs, letters, well-loved books, scraps of lace – things that have been forgotten or discarded – to create a story.  Sometimes I come across an image, abandoned at a flea market, and it immediately speaks to me – a dapper young man in 19th century dress peering up at me asks me to tell his long-forgotten story.  I run across a photo of an old farmhouse with some marking scrawled on the back and my mind begins to wonder.  Who called this place home, what kinds of stories are hidden within the walls?  By piecing seemingly random, long-forgotten bits together using collage, paint, and a variety of other media, a story begins to emerge.  This is what drives me to create.  I feel compelled to tell these stories – real or imagined –through my work because if I don’t, who will?