My own studio and artistic motives for the project revolve along the history of painting as applied to specific tasks not usually associated with fine art such as diorama backdrop painting, sideshow banner painting, Victorian photographic backdrop paintings, Looney Toons animation. I am also interested in three-dimensional taxidermied fakes that are elaborate constructions of animal parts that are intended to fool viewers into thinking that fantastic animals actually exist. The most famous being P.T. Barnum’s FeeJee Mermaid or more popularly in the Midwest, the Jack-o-lope. By utilizing these popular amusements I can redirect peoples’ understanding of the world around them as a participatory endeavor and reintroduce a sense of wonder. All of these “low-art” strategies of representation are predicated on a fantastic and unabashed longing for something or some experience outside of one’s daily reality. This is the same experience of cryptozoologists who suggest that it is the quest more than the discovery that is behind their motivations.”