My family was killed in a tragic water skiing pyramid accident on Lake Wawasee when I was 2 1/2 years old. I might have been in that accident had I been 3. Another close call for me. Luckily I was adopted by a friendly herd of wild horses who taught me everything I would ever need to know about running amuck and staying free in this world.

I quit art school 28 years ago after going for only two years, thinking that I would never make money at art and that doing plumbing, like my father, would be a much better way to earn cash. Plumbing has been very, very good to me. And the skills I've learned in construction, I use in my art. Assembling art is not much different from putting in a new faucet. Except with art I get to break rules and change things around – do that with a faucet and your water goes up in the sink instead of down.

I try to use a lot of junk, discarded objects or bizarre things that I find at yard sales or on the street. I like the aspect of transforming some ugly useless little thing into something more meaningful and even beautiful. We all build shrines of some sort, almost every day. Our entertainment centers with our big TV's and stereos, etc, are shrines. As a people we build shrines to tragedies like 9-11 and Columbine because we need to remember and we need to try to make sense out of it all. Tearing things apart and putting them back together in new ways helps me feel my way through the world.

My work has evolved from decorating little paper mache boxes and using computer hard drive discs to make clocks – to clayboard scratch drawings and shrines and altars – to whatever strikes me at the moment – or whatever pieces I have in front of me. Every box or box like structure calls to me to fill it with something.

My main influences are Louise Nevelson, Joseph Cornell and many other artists whose work I saw at 8am in Art History class everyday through bleary teenaged eyes. I've been in quite a few shows but I don't feel like listing them. What is important is the images themselves, not who I am and what I've done.