Macalester College Senior Show 2006

These drawings and sculptures have come out of a process of spiritual self-exploration and a recognition of my need to labor as an artist. My intention is for the viewer to have a moment of pause and look gently on themselves. These works are attempts to express both the expansive and the particular nature of being human. I wanted to make art that was at once subversive, and uplifting. I am interested in awkwardness, not to make myself or others uncomfortable, but to allow a space to hold the inevitable awkwardnesses of our own existence gently in our awareness with love. The lonely naps are about relationships, to each other and to the viewer, the drawings are about my relationship to my family, and the human being's relationship to their environment. Lonely Naps: The lonely naps came from a project in a fibers class my sophomore year, and have gone through many incarnations to arrive in their current state. In one life, they had sticks coming out of them which made them difficult to approach and (combined with their pillow-like materials) earned them the name lonely naps. Though I hope that they continue to change, now they feel like themselves to me, and I have had merely to keep a hold of them, needle in hand while they grow. I had to make them for my own growth and understanding, and I hope that you also enjoy them. They are meant to reference the experience of being human, as well as embody their own lives as odd veined creatures, existing individually and in a pod, vulnerable and curious, gross and beautiful. This body of work is referencing the all pervasive nature of consciousness, and the point of access as the subtle heart. They are little beings, and I invite you to interact with them, pick them up, wrap their veins around you. When they are out-and-about, they're butt prints remain on the pillows, leaving their quiet record. Working with velour, is, as you can imagine, a pleasure. The forgiving nature of the fabric has allowed me as an artist to give up a lot of control over the end product. The process has been a dance between self-effort and spontaneity. Drawings: These drawings come from old family photos, re-imagined in the vein of blind contour drawings and taken out of my sketchbook. They are exploring space, and subtly drawing attention to the interconnected nature of the universe. I wanted them to be quietly funny, and to give the viewer a space to pause, because this process has given me a chance to pause, and look gently on myself and my family. The obscuring and revealing, redrawing of the lines that connect us are part of my own perception of spiritual experience, the remembering and forgetting and remembering again of things that are so close to us. Portraiture is a way of spending time with people that I care about.