Artist statement

Most summers when my aunts were together I’d join them on the floor around a suitcase full of thrift finds, hand-me-downs, and unfinished sewing projects. Each piece was showed off to the group, and then the bequeathing aunt would recite its entire history orally. This concluded with her relating all the item’s flaws, even the stains she was responsible for, and she would offer a few suggestions of what could still be done with it by the industrious taker.

I’m that sort of taker, for these hand-me-downs, and with my cultural baggage too. I’m never skilled enough to actually fool my audience with the contexts I build for my sculptures. But they do take on a holy, even aloof or alienating air because I have to convey the home ec lessons and sweaty family picnic lore at length like my aunts do. And I’m still just making them on the floor inappropriately grafting in brand new materials from Home Depot and Joann Fabrics (may she rest in peace). 

The archivist in me worries I am misconstruing contexts. But the sculptures also feel approachable, down to earth, even silly at times for their modern ways. I’m taking my ancestors’ ideas in a bit, cutting up their fears, throwing some of their truisms back into the suitcase to fess up to and to purge with the next generation.