Tea Cups

Pet Sop Boys

Simple Things

When I was an undergraduate I was always drawing. My professors used to ask me, “When are you going to start painting, are you ever going to paint?” I tried for years to paint—I simply hated it. For me the entire ‘thing’ felt tedious from the preparation of the canvas to the mixing of pigments. Painting seemed to be glorified by subtleties and weighted in tradition. Traditions I felt no connection to as a contemporary maker and subtlety is not always the right means to address all subject matter. This is not to say I don’t love paintings, and looking at paintings, for I deeply do. Rather it simply wasn’t the proper instrument for me. They kept sitting me in front of a piano and I wanted to stand, sing, and play guitar.

While at Brandeis I abandoned painting altogether. It was a relief; I could use any medium I wanted. Then it was a mess; I could use ANY medium I wanted. What do I use and why? All of a sudden there was a plethora of questions darting through my mind. Questions that painting was never even capable of asking and in those questions was the essence of why I wanted to make art. For me this freedom from tradition represented diversity and a more encompassing method of expressing. Not necessarily to throw out painting rather to embrace other vocabularies.

So now I primarily use paper or mediums that just about everyone has access to, common things. For me it’s a means to demonstrate what can be done with so little and such simple things. The notion that potential is present within everyone if we choose to engage it.

Forced Perspective

For the past few years I have been taking photos of myself while crying. It's a strange thing to try and remember to do while you're upset. Then once the camera starts clicking it gets even weirder. I weaved between and in-and-out of why I was crying and what I was doing in the moment with the pictures. I had to move back and forth between the pain in my mind and the making at my hands. My eyes would well up, and as the tears began to fall I’d try to capture their paths.
I felt like I was somehow acting out that story we tell ourselves when we are upset; everything will be ok, it will pass, and you will be fine. I’d get yanked out of my head by the process of making. In some ways this act was instant perspective and in other ways it was torture. When I saw the first photo I knew; even if I am this now this is not all I am, this moment will pass, as it has before and will again.

This project had a couple different versions. The first prints were on a matte translucent support and the images were rawer. They had gestures portraying the pain in a more literal and physical manner. It made too much sense--in the end they were predictable and I realized nothing by looking at them. This is because I was too compassionate toward them. I wanted the images to try and function in a more objective way. I wanted them to be heroic or maybe it’s triumphant in their viewing, almost proud. To function in a more objective manner as a statue might.















I am not sure which came first--that ‘proud’ notion or recognizing the beauty present within them? But I knew what the next step was - acknowledgment. Acknowledgement instead of compassion seemed to be the mood I was searching for, an acceptance and celebration of human struggle. People have asked me, “Why is she crying?” I always think to myself; well it isn’t cause she stubbed her toe.

Note these are 3 prints (7 exist) from a series which is on going. They are printed at around 3’5”x2’5” and then 10 mil gloss laminated on both sides. The in-person feel and look cannot be expressed through reproduction, as is often the case.