I ask a lot of questions in my work. I ask why I exist. I ask why I am different from clay. I ask why I have to leave the studio and go cook myself food and sleep and cry, when the clay does not have to do any of those things. I ask why I can’t be more like the clay. I ask why I can’t be a particle of stone. I ask why I can’t just sit and be moved by someone else. I ask why I need to be the one to move. I ask why I need to be the one to speak and cry and feel things. Maybe I am not needed. Maybe I don’t need to do any of these things. Maybe I can be a particle of stone. Maybe I can just sit and be, be touched and be moved, be held and stretched and marked and changed and loved, appreciated for my unalterable and slow decay.
I seek the universal truths that bind the universe together at a micro scale and apply them at a macro scale. I press into the clay until there is an almost imperceptible amount of separation between my fingers, until my movement is right in the center of its very being, a moment of connection, a gesture of knowing and influencing the other at its core. I create an intimate relationship with my material such that I am not separate from it. If I can forget where my skin ends and the clay begins, maybe I can forget that I am not clay.
My pieces are the transcript of a conversation between myself and the material. Every pinch, pull, pressure, puncture, and pause. Every moment of exhale and expression. Every gesture and justification. There is space for wonder and whimsy as well as work and worship. The initiation of asking and the journey of discovering. There is struggle and sacrifice, as well as survival and serenity. An ineffective screaming in an omniscient silence.
My most recent body of work is an exploration of how we are taught to love, through familial bonds, relationship, and societal conditioning. The collection was built slowly, carefully, inch by inch, over time with inconvenient materials. Physical elements of balance and weight able to be carried by the overall structure had to be considered with every touch and stretch. By utilizing overly wet, discarded, and reclaimed clay, at a consistency closer to slip than workable clay, I intentionally set myself up to face challenges and setbacks, removing the efficacy of learned techniques, and forcing myself to rely on my intuitive awareness, applying deeply considered care for each step and holistic understanding of the larger picture, balancing the overarching goal with the needs of the moment.
