Artist Statement
2022
My current work is an examination of the glimmer of life that remains after death. As I move
through spaces I look for traces, fragments, and what remains in order to understand what was
once passing over the same ground, breathing the same air as I do. I think of this evidence and
who left it behind as hallow; worth honoring, worth remembering, worth reverence.
Materials such as hair, ceramic, and bone can unlock information about a life lost, revealing and
preserving truths over time. Mourning rituals, funerary traditions, and archeological phenomena
are starting points for sculptures. From a baby’s dress to a set of dentures, a strand of hair to a
single bone, I feel both comfort and anxiety from their hidden secrets. I seek a sense of haunting,
a ghost of the past that has come back.
While researching my work, I often find myself disappearing down rabbit holes. A passage about
burial rituals from an ancient hunter gatherer society may lead me to look at the plaster casts of
Pompeii and then to Victorian era death portraiture. These connective webs that span time,
cultures, and processes circle back into themselves, ever strengthening my hunger for more
information, more instances that prove that death is just another way to live.
An obsessive, ritual-like need to to collect has been a dominant force in how I interact with,
organize, and understand the world. The seemingly commonplace whatnot, the cherished family
heirloom, or the cat’s old whisker all have both known and forgotten narratives embedded in
their matter. They serve as a record of place, time, touch, and person which in turn give tangible
form to the past, present, and future held in their existence.
I primarily use clay because of its strong bond to human creativity, transformational qualities,
and ability to record and render truths. Ceramic objects have withstood the test of time, creating
a window back into the maker’s methods, the user’s actions, and the traditions around it. The
nature of clay lends itself well to work about the body; it can mimic flesh and bone. It sweats,
cracks, shatters, and disappears back into the earth from which it came.