Mana Dork

Mana Dork 12"x9"; Magic the Gathering Card, porn from Fred Bookhardt’s estate sale, fishing and hunting magazines; 2026 Type: Collage Mana Dork gathers fragments of childhood fantasy, erotic longing, magic, hunting, and landscape into a protective object. The work comes from thinking about big emotions and the artists I return to at the Kohler Art Preserve, makers whose urgent, obsessive acts of creation feel like a way to survive or escape an overwhelming feeling. In therapy, I have been looking back at boyhood and asking why love, especially traditional romantic love, can feel so consuming and difficult in a new city. The card becomes a spell, a small sacrifice, a question: what can be given up to quiet yearning? Through collage, I am piecing together desire, fear, play, and imagination, wondering whether creativity can ward off longing and help me fall in love with my art again.