Community. Connection. Responsibility.

My practice is complicated individual elements brought together precariously; how they connect together, stressed by gravity and tension. Responsible for each other, their precarious nature mirrors their own mortality and their responses to the stressors of existence mimics our own. I love making suspended works; they defy what they can, rebellious imps that they are, while having to acknowledge what they must.

I am a materialist in the truest sense of the word. I interrogate my materials lovingly and with great care looking for the ways in which they can speak to commonalities or show their uniqueness. And what of this compulsive need for connection? I stand there, with you, be it in person or in spirit through the work experiencing the micro and macro of existence; the before and now and future and wondering why we are crossing paths. For while I know that I am a spec of dust, as are you, it is stardust. Every atom in our bodies came from a star that exploded. We are in the middle of our bodies, our families, our communities, the Milky Way.

At its essence: Things fall apart and reconnect. I document it.

How wonderful then, to be paired by Ted Meyer with Dr. Axel Montagne. His research into the ways bits of our body are responsible for the other bits is such a poignant microcosm of the entirety of, well, everything. And he, too, documents what falls apart, but he tries to figure out the why and is having some amazing successes. In the meantime he makes some gorgeous imagery that stimulated me to produce a playful suspended wire sculpture simulacra of the brain wirings.

We have had some wonderful conversations, he and I. And for those I am grateful. Both from the perspective of an artist learning more about scientific things I enjoy, certainly. But more so because as a person with an inflammatory chronic illness Dr. Montagne has been illuminating in helping me to understand some of the things people like me experience.