Artist Statements
Investigating Grief
My work grasps at the edges of the immeasurable, shifting space of grief, tugging them into embodiment so I can attempt to understand them. In 2017, I experienced a traumatic brain injury which left me struggling with memory loss. In this same period, my grandmother’s dementia was worsening rapidly. A prolific quilter, she forgot how to sew, and in 2020 she passed away. The wounds of these two losses—the loss of self and the loss of a loved one—mirror and scaffold one another.
By rendering familiar images and objects disorienting, I reflect the experience of a life made unfamiliar by loss. The comfortable structures of quilts become burnt-out ghosts, leaking ash and vanishing into smoke. By deconstructing and recontextualizing domestic objects, I reconstruct my incomplete memories over their unknown histories. This work makes visible the invisible processes which wound and alter us, creating opportunities to care for them.
Paper Sculpture
Through the repetitive processes of stitching and cutting paper, I create expressive forms which I hope will connect with and communicate with people at a deep level. Delicate paper garments and intricately cut, illuminated paper scenes explore the things we carry with us, the stories we tell about who we are and where we come from, and the ones we make up because we don't know where that is. Light transforms paper, showing the bones of the processes that create it. Through this work, I am inventing such a record of memory. I want to discover how I can sink roots without remaining in one place, and how I can carry “home” with me.
When I began making paper garments, I was exploring the ways in which fairytales can be used as a lens through which emotional processes like anxiety and guilt can be examined. My current work is focused on the growth and disintegration and regrowth of relationships.