I seek the intersection between motherhood & childhood, visibility, and memory, often using unconventional materials that connect to childhood and “women’s work.”
I am both documenting and finding metaphors in childhood and motherhood. My practice centers around photographing daily life, with attention to color and light. I curate these photos as both works on their own and references for work with polymer clay, play-doh, cyanotype, or linocut prints. Water is a recurring theme in my work, a place of calm, peace, chaos, and danger; a valuable diminishing resource; making up ~60% of our bodies. My work takes on the blues of this blue gold, the rainbows refracted in its ripples, and the muted neons of pink stucco and the yellow-gray smoggy LA sky.
When creating my clay work, I meditatively mix and blend colors, rolling and squishing the clay with my hands. I use a small clay blade and a sewing pin to shape and place each color onto glass where I build my images. I plan my cyanotypes and prints from photos, working carefully with light or a knife. As my hands stay busy, my mind wanders between my flickering memories, the history of the water in my body (has it existed in the sea, the clouds, another body?), and my child’s future. I keep climate anxiety at bay as I unearth childhood traumas and rewrite my history through my daughter. By elevating “low-brow” child’s materials into a referent for the work of mothers, I’m making visible the often unseen act of mothering and ignored inner worlds of children.
For statements about each series, visit the series page.