FINE ArT
Below is a selection of my artworks in descending order.
For the most immersive viewing experience, consider opening this page on a large screen.
The Waystation Project
The Waystation project was aimed at affecting the energy in my neighborhood through creating sites for transmutation, energetic action and consciousness raising. This project was the subject of my MFA thesis titled “Encountering the Other: Art and engagement in the time of late-stage capitalism.”
The project involved creating waystations - simple, decorated constructions built from secondhand or found materials that allowed for a high level of community accessibility and easy engagement. Each waystation had a specific purpose based on my felt and observed sense of the various needs of the community in which it was placed. I was able to share this project with Intermedia MFA students who also created their own waystation with high levels of success.
Waystation Generation
Waystation Generation was the artistic culmination of the Waystation project above. It was a display of the documentation from the project, the zine I created for building one’s own waystation, and a selection of materials for creating a waystation to be brought out into the world.
The video shows the piece before interaction, the photos below shows the piece after interaction. Nobody took away anything from the piece as I had intended, rather the whole piece itself became a type of waystation.
Silent Witness
Silent Witness is a durational performance piece that examines the perception of time, loneliness, and the way that the observer affects the observed and vice versa.
This antique chair has been in my life since I was born and has traveled with me from the Northeast to the Southwest. Even though well over 200 years ago it was built to sit around the table at the center of home activity, it has spent most of my lifetime in the corners of rooms, a place for towels and worn clothes, but a witness to some of the most private moments in my and my family’s history.
The Oracular Series
The Oracular series was my foray into doing Tarot readings in a public-facing way. This is a series of short, social media-specific videos made from creative commons video footage, tarot and oracle card readings, and the triangulation between the two became the message. To see all of the videos from this series, check out my Vimeo.
Five of Pentacles was created to be a visceral representation of the physical hardships and lengths that women have had to go through to maintain bodily autonomy, both now and throughout history.
It consisted of a series of hospital gowns I handmade and then printed using cyanotype solution and black tea to simulate the look of old blood. Like blood, cyanotype solution’s main components contain iron. Along with the physical gowns, this project also produced the black and white photo of myself wearing the gown. Without any clear fashion or technology cues present in the photo, it could have been taken place at almost any time in history.
Five of Pentacles
How to Feel Better
This piece utilized methods prescribed by my then-therapist to release my suppressed anger in its creation. Showing the work of exorcizing familial demons.
Using ink, a collection of personally meaningful materials (including copies of “The God Delusion” and “The Desire of Ages,” China cups and plates, and a novelty eraser) and a unique mark-making technique, this piece was meant to put the messy, sometimes destructive process of mental healing into a physical form.
How Do You Sleep At Night?
This piece comes out of the paradox of rage and self care, the desire to harm and the desire to heal, all while finding yourself carrying a burden that no one asked you to carry.
A binding ritual for a dangerous person overlayed with clips from an ASMR video that I have listened to on hundreds of nights to help me sleep as I worked through the secondhand trauma of feeling powerless when a loved one has been harmed.
Logical Conclusion
How far do we go when we are given guidance from beyond ourselves? How completely do we submit to the will of unseen forces?