At Daybreak

McLanahan Gallery, Penn State University 2019

 This body of work began with excavating our family pet and farm animal cemetery on their property in rural Pennsylvania. While teaching at Brown University, I audited an archeology class and employed the techniques I learned there on this project. Out of the excavation came Belle Dama, a sculpture made from a full-body cast of my childhood horse, Dama. Bella Dama features a cast of my horse's remains in resin adorned with an intricately beaded shroud. This shroud draws inspiration from coverings placed on Egyptian sarcophagi, Victorian-era mourning jewelry, and Christian mourning practices, such as the jeweled skeletons of "The Catacomb Saints." The hand-beaded shroud's meticulous craftsmanship is a striking contrast to the rawness of the bones beneath. In the accompanying video, the physical process unfolds as an intimate exploration of the tangible remnants of my heritage. It also serves as an inquiry into my personal mythology, beliefs, and identity. Additionally, other works in this series incorporate symbolic elements related to the cosmos, ritual objects, familial bonds, biological cycles, the underworld, and the afterlife.

Darkness There Was at First By Darkness Hidden, 2017

Brass, radio tuned to static, speaker

Dimensions variable, hangs in sections from ceiling at various points.

Blooodlines, 2017

Steel, moss, glass beads

40” x 50” x 24”

Bloodlines is a pair of saddles I sculpted with delicate steel frames covered in elaborate beading. The two saddles are replicas of both my grandfather’s saddle for his horse Dama and the saddle for my pony Silver. I beaded them to imitate the patterns of leather work on the originals, which are dry rotting away. This is one way that I can keep the memory from decaying. In-between the beads I am growing moss harvested from the horses’ burial site on my families property, while ivory colored glass beads strung like roots and mycorrhizae (the symbiotic fungus that lives along tree roots) hang beneath the saddles. The saddles sit side-by-side on sawhorses, with the roots connecting to each ends, as symbols of concurrent generations feeding resources back and forth to nourish each other.

Abecedarium, 2016

Acrylic paint on cavas

8’ x 8’