Breathe With Me Grieve With Me Heave With Me
Installation at Catskill Art Space, 2025
Breathe with Me Grieve with Me Heave with Me is a new body of work, initially inspired by witnessing the broadcast of the 2024 Summer Olympics alongside war and genocidal conflict. A visitor asked if in fact the Olympics were the antithesis to war. Though both can parade in regalia, pageantry and nationalist line formations, the Olympics, he felt, held a greater moral position because of many examples of good sportsmanship. The conversation ended in a question mark, but frames some complexity in this large body of work influenced by these dark times.
My work is context responsive; a place to reflect on our individual and collective loss and mourning while witnessing the horrors of war, the trend towards authoritarianism, and the resistance against them. I work largely in ceramics and mixed media, with a background in both ceramic sculpture and social practice. Growing up as the only bad athlete in a household of elite athletes and their trophies formed my interest in alternative lifestyles, economies and communities.
The Epitaph series hint at mausoleum covers, alluding to cast metal and carved stone, made entirely of glazed ceramic. They have no words, just blank name plates for the countless worldwide sorrows. They are surrounded by pops of color- immortelles of ceramic and found vintage florals. These act as a memorial for our collective and personal grief. They are accompanied by Low Tumulus, a burial mound of colorful rocks and flowers, the size of a child.
Nodding to our current political mood, the Black Cloud series are pouffy ceramic formations, some with rain drops made with chandelier crystals. Some of them have splattered to the ground, perhaps hinting at a transformation in the atmosphere.
For a long time I’ve been interested in the double entendre of the word decoration- to decorate or to be decorated. I often add household and fashion accessories to my ceramic works inspired by military decoration and Victorian mourning jewelry. Defeated pom poms, flags, crests, epaulettes, burdensomely heavy shields, flowering swords and other nods to military regalia fill the gallery. These works simultaneously address our grief and despair, while also grasp for humor and joy.