Recent Projects > pilgrim, approaching wordlessness

Burnt Offering
tin can fired ceramic
30x34 inches
2017
Detail of Burnt Offering
tin can fired ceramic
30x34 inches
2017
Holy
foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, joint compound, spray paint, found object
23x16.5 inches
2017
Holy (Detail)
23x16.5 inches
2017
Oculus
foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, taxidermy clay, silver B metal coating, iron B metal coating, patina, found object
24x26 inches
2017
Oculus (Detail)
24x26 inches
2017
C
foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, taxidermy clay, iron B metal coating, patina, found object
23x24 inches
2017
C (Detail)
23x24 inches
2017
True Or False
foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, joint compound, iron B metal coating, patina, black primer, holy dirt from Chimayo, found object
2017
True Or False Detail 1
foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, joint compound, iron B metal coating, patina, black primer, holy dirt from Chimayo, found object
2017
Yellow Thing
foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, joint compound, epoxy putty, spray paint, gouache, found object
22x25 inches
2017
Yellow Thing (Detail)
22x25 inches
2017
Cross
mdf, acrylic gouache
10x10 inches
2017
Disk
mdf, joint compound, black primer, gouache, dirt from Roswell, found object
13 inches
2017
Target
mdf, joint compound, gouache, iron B metal coating, found object
13 inches
2017
Punched
mdf, gouache, found object
17x7 inches
2017
Overlap Drawing, Figments
colored pencil on paper
11x14 inches
2017
Overlap Drawing, Soft Things
colored pencil on paper
11x14 inches
2017
Overlap Drawing, A Shape and Her Shadows
colored pencil on paper
7x10 inches
2017
2019
2019
2019
Overlay
glass, spray paint, mdf, graphite
variable
2017
Liminal
gel pen on black paper
20x28 inches
2017
Kana Breeze Block Wall
gel pen and gouache on black paper
9x12 inches
2017
Greenpoint Gate
gel pen and gouache on black paper
7x5 inches
2017
Sanctuary
gel pen and colored pencil on black paper
9x12 inches
2017
Permeable (Broken Clover)
cast FGR 95
5x10 feet
2017
Permeable (Broken Clover)
cast FGR 95
5x10 feet
2017

pilgrim, approaching wordlessness

“Where am I going? The answer is I’m going.” - Clarice Lispector, Agua Viva

Each component of this exhibition is derived from structures and things I’ve had direct contact with while walking. For years I’ve been taking walks through neighborhoods in New York and the many other neighborhoods of artist residencies across the U.S. and abroad. I take snapshots of ubiquitous decorative concrete blocks and windows that make disparate lives seem uniform from the outside. Until now, walking has been an invisible part of my practice, a way to clear my mind and stay present in my body. Here in Roswell, I take daily walks down to the railroad tracks. And in April, I experienced the pilgrimage to Chimayo. I am not a collector, and yet in Roswell I mindlessly reach down and pick up bits of broken, rusted things. I see a color or a shape that resonates with me and I pocket it. Visitors to my studio noticed my growing collection and started adding objects, some recent, some from years ago, from their own walks. The collection has become a collective, the walk a shared communion.

My work has grown alongside readings and thoughts on the act of pilgrimage. In Rebecca Solnit’s book Wanderlust she refers to pilgrimage “…as a liminal state – a state of being between one’s past and future identities and thus outside the established order, in a state of possibility.” I came here to transition from one body of work to another, to lose myself and find myself again. The objects I find are a type of souvenir. Unlike most souvenirs that point backward toward a nostalgic moment in time, these souvenirs point forward toward something still becoming. According to Bill Brown in his essay Thing Theory, an object becomes a thing when it breaks, no longer neatly fitting into a category of functionality. We see the window when it becomes dirty. When a body is sick or hurt there is a stutter in its effortless daily negotiations. It slips into uncharted territory. It exceeds our vocabulary. By remaking and enlarging things I see and find I straddle what Brown calls “…the threshold between the nameable and unnameable, the figurable and unfigurable, the identifiable and unidentifiable…” I am approaching wordlessness.