Date of Submission

Spring 2011

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Advisor

Lisa Sanditz

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Artist’s Statement

This is about trying to exist in between. This is about fulfilling expectation and then breaking it back down. This is about me realizing for how long I have lived and worked under an assumed notion of what I thought other people wanted me to do, and now my rigorous engagement with a conscious struggle to identify these notions and destruct them. Destruction is not a negative razing, but a very conscious stripping down of a proclaimed truth until it is wholly my own. This is a process of moment to moment work to connect and reconnect to my truth, without judgement. Through a process of a conscious going inside of the self, denying the critical voice, and producing an object or idea in the purest form it can be, I am searching for authenticity. It is this intense struggle towards intuition which I believe is the work.

I am from a family of fisherman, I want to be rugged--I want to be real, I want to live of the earth and I have it in my veins. I am from LA and a family in the film industry, I had anorexia and spent a long time believing I only cared about clothes and cars and what people thought of me. These beliefs became truths and I now work daily to reform the truths I no longer want; the false truths that destruct how I am meant to exist in the world. I do this work through the making of objects and creating environments in which I am present with and connected to every square inch. Everyone has differing methods of finding their genuine self, and these reaffirmations of intuition are manifest in altering ways. I make this work so that you can feel my struggle towards and hopeful attainment of authenticity and then know that you can make your work too. This is about sitting through discomfort--proposing to yourself a situation which exists in the world, wrangling with it, and making it fit for you and only you. This is about me building from the bones up my own belief-system, being uncompromising and simultaneously accepting . I do not intend to impose this belief-system upon anyone else, rather to suggest that our most intuitive selves and belief systems can coexist.

This is for knocking down comparison, and providing expansion and mystery in the world. Everyone has their own power, and this is a call to find it. Through this work I have begun to find mine. Habitual thoughts from the past still arise, causing me moments of intense self disgust. This is about denying those beliefs as reality, and learning to love. Learning to love the awkward, the curious, and finding joy in small moments which make me wonder. This work has made me more excited about the world, and I believe that that is the most my work can possibly do for me. We are here to acknowledge the past, keep what works, and reform what does not in hopes of refinement towards true connection with ourselves and attaining ultimate balance.

This is about the fact that I often change my outfit about five times before I leave the house, and calling that into question. Its about separation from placing value on material objects, while at the same time honoring all that exists in the world, both physically and energetically. I want this work to be powerful, but only enough so that, maybe if the world is hard for you too (which i can only imagine it must be) this can make you forget expectation, even for a moment. And maybe then you can go home and do whatever your work may be and you will feel good for an hour or maybe more.

I am drawn to making sculpture, but I feel a discomfort with the fact that there is already so much physical stuff which exists in the world. I therefore, feel a responsibility to all this ‘trash’. We refer to this ‘trash’ as ‘found objects’, but I use the objects and materials I find, as a means of quieting my discomfort with connection to material things. I wonder what would happen if we made beautiful things or used what we throw away instead of putting it in the dumpster or the landfill. Even if the only function of these objects is just to be there, if they are there with consciousness, with honor, no longer ‘taking up space’, but, creating and occupying a new space; no longer acting as contractive trash, but as expansive beings. There is tension and unsureness in these beliefs, but sometimes instability can force you to be present.

Most importantly, this work is about trying to talk with people about what we all experience, in our own way. I need a reason to be here, I need to create for myself a meaning, and this work has been that meaning for the past year of my life. I will move forth through the world, assigning meaning to new ideas and works, and questioning the beliefs I have, in order to continue this distillation as attainment of truth.

I am formulating the way I want my mind to work in the world, the way I want myself to exist. This is my reality, and I believe we each have our own. I want to see yours and I know they can coexist authentically and successfully.

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