My great-aunt had cookbooks. A lot of them. Tucked inside were decades’ worth of handwritten and clipped recipes, grocery store ads, and food advertisements—most of them from the mid to late 1960s. My original thought was, “I’m going to cook some of these!” Then I saw that half the ingredients either don’t exist anymore or I had no idea what they were. Salad oil? What? But I didn’t want to toss them out or forget about them, so I decided to use them in my art.

That’s really how it started. Constructing at my kitchen table, which feels appropriate. The geometry found its way in, as it always does. Then in the midst of cutting and arranging, I noticed something — these ads are hilarious! The optimism, the styling, the way they sold food like a lifestyle to women who, according to these ads, existed primarily to serve it. And sitting at my kitchen table in 2026, where a single grocery run can feel like a financial decision, that cheerfulness hits a little differently. I didn’t set out to make a commentary on food costs and domesticity. But that’s what happened.