Thank you for letting us share this moment.
How I Reach[ed] God, handmade paper, plaster, chicken wire, metal, 104"x35"x5", 2024
(left) The body speaks.
(right) Louder than the mind.
handmade paper & screen prints on canvas, 18" x 24"
I will forever apologize for how I could have held back our predetermined fate. If I could rewind the tape and prevent it all I would watch it happen a million times. I would relive it again and again
And again.
Until my thoughts no longer whisper that there’s nothing there.
The tape rolls on.
It takes two.
Left: Of dust and ashes, handmade paper, plaster, 2024
Right: Spit, handmade paper casted beads, 2023
handmade paper, tights
you made me [an artist] within the space that is (found) between living and remembering
Screen-Print on Handmade Paper, Inkjet Prints of 35mm Film, mixed-media book (2024)
Before the softness of your skin abandons my mind and distorts into a course pile of blood and bones; I have begun crafting a world where we will exist forever.
Where I will become envious of the air that fills your lungs and the earth that wraps around you.
Where you will become droplets of inspiration and I will never find rest.
Perhaps if I dwell between living and remembering, I will become an artist.
Then these pieces of you will only be strokes of paint and a disarrangement of written words. Simply a muse, never more.
If memory is punishment, then let me burn in this hell for eternity.
Until then, I rest, Audio, 05:21, 2024
I spent a spring sprawled out on a matted-down blanket collecting rocks and painting on cheap canvas. As the sun set, I felt the earth's heartbeat begin to slow. I watched the waltz between water and wind breathing in and out like a song. I fell in love with that moment. The pulse of my mind echoed quietly again and again. It’s an old song, but it was a sliver of the heavens.
Now, winter has passed, the rain is gone, and I have returned to this spot a different person. I continue to share this sandy patch on the north side of the beach with many. It feels as though I’m giving a piece of myself to whom I’m with. If I reincarnate this location, offering it new life, perhaps I can find those same feelings I experienced years ago. Perhaps if I spend time memorizing the rhythm of the water, I’ll find a deeper part of myself. Perhaps if we share communion, your mannerisms and habits will become my own. Thank you for letting me take a piece of you with me. Thank you for letting us share this moment.
The creation of paper is a labor of love. Ripping apart prints and paintings, forming collages of my creation feels cathartic. I watch it become something new. I destroy it. I let it breathe and live. Then like the rolling of the tide, I destroy it again, washing it away. This is that same act of communion. As I continue to tell the same story again, broken and destroyed, I find those past versions of myself wrapped into who I’ve become. I chase after her. These works in sculpture, photography, and sound are a reflection, a celebration, and the discovery of being formed by one another. These are the ways I feel the presence of God.
