I’ve been thinking about the validity of things. I’ve been thinking about the wreck, and not the story of the wreck. The thing itself, and not the myth. I’ve been thinking about how everything before now has felt like breadcrumbs, leading me to the very place I am. The very place I’m going. I’ve been thinking about making new things from old things. Some kind of Cinderella transformation. Validation.

 

I’m interested in the chipped mug, the stained dress, the window screen with a hole in it. Annotated books with yellowed pages. Furniture with worn edges. Wrinkles and grey hair and swing sets with rusted chains. I’m interested in where we go when our pens run out of ink, our cars out of gas, our bones out of marrow, our joints out of cartilage. How to tread water for a lifetime? 

 

Artmaking swallows me whole. It empties me out. It fills me back up, to the gills, and then again. My work is an invitation, “You can come in if you want to.” And then, “I’d like you to come in, but only if you want to.”