The Secret Life of Stick Figures

The Secret Life of Stick Figures is an ongoing series born from my years of teaching and my lifelong search for wonder. For the past fifteen years, while teaching visual arts to children in New York City and San Francisco, I have been photographing and collecting student artwork—drawings that embody the raw inventiveness and unfiltered imagination of childhood. Over time, these images became more than classroom artifacts; they evolved into the foundation for a narrative that blends children’s visual language with my own artistic inquiry.

In this project, I reimagine the simplicity of children’s artwork to craft new aesthetic and psychological stories. By layering diverse materials and themes, I invite viewers to see familiar figures in unexpected ways, opening a space where innocence, memory, and imagination intertwine.

This work also carries me back to my own beginnings. I grew up in rural Puerto Rico, an only child who built worlds out of solitude—worlds filled with magic, adventure, and self-made companions. Revisiting children’s drawings and constructions now is more than an artistic process; it is a way of reconnecting with that creative inner child and giving voice to the narratives that shaped me.