Martin Freeman grew up in Martinez, CA, and often visited San Francisco with his family. He says, "It was during those trips that I discovered art. Not in museums, but at the Emeryville mudflats where people had constructed temporary sculptures out of materials washed ashore. The sculptures disappeared with the changing tides, but were eventually replaced. That experience instilled in me a love of 'found' materials and taught me that art was not always about something that looked real.

"As a young adult, I painted before making sculptures, which, from the beginning, I called 'babies.' This surrogate family was built from childhood mementos: dolls, my mother's dresses, children's furniture--friends gave me their cast-off objects and I collected items on the street."