Saved, Eye Jacket, La crime d’ore,
As I work I am always aware that my objectivity is a foundation of shifting plates. I work combining the familiar and the strange into sculptures that are like fables without language.
An artist freedom to express is such that we cloak our motivations into something separate from ourselves, an object. This stands alone long after our artistic, social, political and intellectual causes to action have changed.
The creation of my work is physical, emotion, and full of “aha”s. My work is always narrative, mostly without out words and often without titles. My interest in the figure continues and I am still motivated by the emotions of vulnerability, isolation, anger, and confounded resignation .
I see in current work as well as in older sculptures how dreams, secrets, and the experiences of of others informs everything that I make.
The work SHIFT, created for the Convention Center in Columbus Ohio is a kind of ” changing places” story. I have come think of aging as performance of changing places. This process can feel like a blindfolded dance, to a kind of song called “Be Ready”. Who wants to focus on this stuff- not me, so I am always bumped in the head with the surprises that this life journey presents.
Most of the objects here were made to help me remember a specific moment in time. Created from drawings, by the time I have finished the object, other concerns have influenced the work and sashayed the finished piece away from my original idea. The emotional link that ties most of these works to one another is a consuming frustration about war, concerns about parenting, patriotism, and the politics of engagement in conflicts. Add to this, the darker fear that things like human trafficking, and corporate greed are part of the fabric of this civilized society and my little boat feels very small and not so safe. My mother used to say that “men are rivers and women are wells.” Maybe this is so, but I find myself much more concerned with how well we can all float, and who slips under the waterline.
previous