ARTIST STATEMENT

When I look at my art, I squint. Not because I need glasses but because squinting allows me to critique, to feel, and to balance the composition. For just a moment, I reduce the noise and excitement of materiality, intricacy, and detail. For the duration of one breath, I experience the piece as a viewer and not as an artist. 

Ceramics was my entry into art, and balance is essential in ceramics. Clay settles me. It’s a constant push and pull between the unknown and the known. Every time the wheel begins a spin, I have an opportunity to challenge the boundaries. When the walls collapse, I feel no regret. Rather, relief flows over me, assuring me the process is fragile and requires presence. One collapsed pot means one more word understood in the language of clay. The seeking keeps my process humble and ever-changing, as I’m striving for that narrow, often personal, balance in my art. 

At college, I started drawing. Charcoal moves on the page at the speed of my brain. Pretty quickly, the charcoal became an extension of my arm. There’s a physicality to my process. I work with my whole body. I stand up, I squat, I reach on my tippy-toes, and the charcoal is right there alongside me. I rip, and I tear; I get close and step back. I suspend reality. I toy with abstraction, and my art becomes larger and wilder. The challenge is knowing when to stop. 

Sculpture meant back to reality. Suddenly, I’m drilling into my art, turning it upside down, and shaping an exhaustive experience. In drawing, I grapple with bodies and spaces. In sculpture, I engage with their absence. My art and I both experience gravity, humidity, and space.

And now, printmaking. Etching brought a perceived sense of permanency. I say “perceived” because the medium has felt anything but permanent throughout these last two months. For the first time in my years of making art, I have a tangible and lasting trail of transformation. That trail is the artwork.

It’s always about feeling. I take photos of what I see when I feel something strongly. And these photographs capture moments of truth, but my art always tries to return to and express that initial feeling—the presence. Can I make the past feel present again? Playing with perspective, with abstracting landscapes, and with light allows me to break down absolute truth and approach those almost incomprehensible feelings. It’s those feelings that define presence. 

Now, when I see beauty, I squint. Observing the world and creating art are one and the same, and I am so grateful.