Our relationships to materials and objects have been dramatically challenged in 2020. While the virus was taking hold our lives largely shifted into private space and there was an unexpected material shift out into the public. Walking up to my 3rd floor apartment I passed empty shipping boxes, packaging, and discarded objects arranged beside my neighbors doors. Suddenly, there was a distancing from the quotidian materials and objects we interact with on a daily basis.
This work is a way of thinking through these shifts - a renegotiation with materials while considering the details, intimacy, and collective experiences of objects. They are rendered from industrial aluminum and gypsum panels cast directly from them. In the work, everyday objects oscillate between the familiar and unfamiliar, as recognizable references reveal themselves with close observation. Through the study and manipulation of these objects, I explore ideas of preciousness, memory, value, and labor.
Industrial Aluminum; 51” x 40” x 2”; 2020
Industrial Aluminum; 51” x 40” x 2”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 20” x 15” x 3”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 24” x 14” x 3”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 22” x 16” x 4”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 25” x 14” x 3”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 26” x 16” x 4”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 18” x 14” x 3”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 26” x 24” x 3”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 15” x 16” x 3”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 30” x 13” x 3”; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 26” x 26” x 3”; 2020
Panels; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; Sizes vary; 2020
Panels; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 12.5” x 9” x 2” each; 2020
Panel; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 12.5” x 9” x 2”; 2020
Panels; Hydrocal, pigments, steel hardware; 9” x 12.5” x 2.5” each; 2020
Casting Shadows is an installation of jewelry, sculpture, and print. The work uses production materials and techniques to render and transform ubiquitous forms association with the body, industry, and value. Informed by various fabricating roles, the work complicates the narrative of producing by carving out, reconfiguring, and deconstructing the process – reimagining the methods that generate form and shape. The installation ultimately explores authenticity within production – questionings what becomes the mold and what becomes the object, what is discarded and what is valued, and what is seen and what is unseen. Casting Shadows materializes these negotiations and relationships between high and low materials, the body and object, production and process, and making and exchanging.
Sculpture; Unglazed black porcelain, brass, steel, silkscreen, digital prints; 18” x 12" x 5" (46 x 30.5 x 13cm); 2019
Sculpture; Unglazed stained porcelain, brass, steel, silkscreen, digital prints; 82” x 50” x 6” Installation (208 x 127 x 15cm); 2019
Sculpture; Unglazed black porcelain, brass; 10” x 9” x 4” (25.5 x 23 x 10cm); 2019
Sculpture; Unglazed stained porcelain, brass; 14” x 12” x 3” (35.5 x 30.5 x 8cm); 2018
Sculpture; Unglazed black porcelain, brass; 20” x 18” x 5” (51 x 46 x 13cm); 2019
Sculpture; Unglazed black porcelain, brass; 18” x 16” x 4” (46 x 41 x 10cm); 2018
Sculpture; Unglazed black porcelain, brass; 18” x 16” x 4” (46 x 41 x 10cm); 2018
Sculpture; Unglazed stained porcelain, brass; 30” x 16” x 4” (76 x 41 x 10cm); 2018
Sculpture; Unglazed black porcelain, brass; 13” x 9” x 4” (33 x 23 x 10cm); 2019
Brooches; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel, silkscreen print; 3" x 3" x 0.75" each (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel; 3" x 3" x 0.75" (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel; 3" x 3" x 0.75" (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel; 3" x 3" x 0.75" (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Brooches; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel, silkscreen print; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 4” x 2.5” x 1.5” pendant (10 x 6.5 x 4cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 2.75” x 3.25” x 1” pendant (7 x 8.5 x 2.5cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, cord; 3” x 2” x 1” pendant (8 x 5 x 2.5cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 2.75” x 3.25” x 1” pendant (7 x 8 x 2.5cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3.5” x 2” x 1.5” pendant (9 x 5 x 4cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3” x 2” x 1” (pendant); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3.25” x 2.75” x 1.5” pendant (8 x 7 x 4cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3.5” x 2” x 1.5” pendant (9 x 5 x 4cm); 2019
Casting Shadows is an installation of jewelry, sculpture, and print. The work uses production materials and techniques to render and transform ubiquitous forms association with the body, industry, and value. Informed by various fabricating roles, the work complicates the narrative of producing by carving out, reconfiguring, and deconstructing the process – reimagining the methods that generate form and shape. The installation ultimately explores authenticity within production – questionings what becomes the mold and what becomes the object, what is discarded and what is valued, and what is seen and what is unseen. Casting Shadows materializes these negotiations and relationships between high and low materials, the body and object, production and process, and making and exchanging.
Brooches; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel, silkscreen print; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, steel; 2" x 2" x 0.5" (5 x 5 x 1.5cm); 2018
Brooches; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel, silkscreen print; 3" x 3" x 0.75" each (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel; 3" x 3" x 0.75" (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel; 3" x 3" x 0.75" (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Brooch; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, steel; 3" x 3" x 0.75" (8 x 8 x 2cm); 2018
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 4” x 2.5” x 1.5” pendant (10 x 6.5 x 4cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 2.75” x 3.25” x 1” pendant (7 x 8.5 x 2.5cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed black porcelain, silver, cord; 3” x 2” x 1” pendant (8 x 5 x 2.5cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 2.75” x 3.25” x 1” pendant (7 x 8 x 2.5cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3.5” x 2” x 1.5” pendant (9 x 5 x 4cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3” x 2” x 1” (pendant); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3.25” x 2.75” x 1.5” pendant (8 x 7 x 4cm); 2019
Necklace; Unglazed stained porcelain, silver, cord; 3.5” x 2” x 1.5” pendant (9 x 5 x 4cm); 2019
‘Workshop (2016–Ongoing)’ is an evolving participatory jewelry project made collectively with the public. The project takes influence from a workshop — a space for both studio and educational purposes — where I invite participants to learn basic mold making and casting to contribute to the installation with pendants. I use jewelry as a sculptural format because it is ubiquitous and intimate in scale, yet represents powerful emotional and social touchstones anchored in empathy, value, memory, power, and loss. ‘Workshop (2016–Ongoing)’ channels this emotional power through community building and participatory making.
Along with the displaying this project, I host and facilitate a public component of ‘Workshop (2016–Ongoing)’ during scheduled drop-in hours. During these public times, participants collectively reflect on personal jewelry-related memories, connections, and stories as a starting point. Through the act of mold making, stamping, tooling, and plaster casting, participants create pendants influenced by those memories, feelings, and the role of jewelry in our lives. The clay press molds and jewelry-shape stamps are shared, reworked, and created communally. Over the course of the public project, plaster is cast into the molds to create pendants that are then displayed in the exhibition, which grows with each participant’s contribution. I invite all participants to the closing reception to take a pendant as a token for taking part. The work is thereby disseminated into the community.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, I view this project with a new lens. During this past year, our relationships to materials, objects, and working collectively have been dramatically challenged. As a participatory project, ‘Workshop (2016–Ongoing)’ becomes a way of thinking through objects again — renegotiating with materials, working collaboratively, and considering the details, intimacy, and collective experiences of the things around us.
This project evolves from previous iterations hosted at: Museum of Arts and Design, NY (2016 under MADMakes), Center for Craft, NC (2016), OMNI, Columbus Museum of Art + Design (2017), NYC Jewelry Week (2018), Articulating Craft, Nazareth College, NY (2019), Baltimore Jewelry Center, MD (2019), and Hearts + Flowers, Brooklyn Metal Works, NY (2021)
Plaster, pigment, cord; 8’ x 15’ (2.5 x 4.5m); 2018
Plaster, pigment, cord; 45” x 20” x 1.5” (114 x 51 x 4cm); 2018
Plaster, pigment, cord; 5” x 4” x 1” largest pendant size (13 x 10 x 2.5cm); 2018
Plaster, pigment, cord; 5” x 4” x 1” largest pendant size (13 x 10 x 2.5cm); 2018
Plaster, pigment, cord; 8’ x 15’ installation (2.5 x 4.5m); 2016
Plaster, pigment, cord; 2016
Plaster, pigment, cord; 8’ x 15’ (2.5 x 4.5m); 2018
Plaster, pigment, cord; 5” x 4” x 1” largest pendant size (13 x 10 x 2.5cm); 2018
Plaster, pigment, cord; 5’ x 10’ (1.5 x 3m); 2019
Impressions is a participatory project and installation of ceramic panels made collectively with the HANAC Senior Center in Queens, NY. Participants bring in personal possessions and objects from their homes during "drop-in hours" as a starting point for their tiles. Through user-friendly silicone putty press-molds and learning simple clay-building techniques, the objects are recreated into clay replicas and made into clay panels. The program is a point of departure for conversation, interaction and collective object making that explores memory, relationships, and storytelling. As a collective group, the panels become not only a voice of the individual, but also the larger community - a visual portrait through personal objects and the relationships between people and their possessions.
The project was generously supported by Queens Council on the Arts and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
Clay, glaze; 6” x 6” x 1” (15 x 15 x 2.5cm)
Clay, glaze; 6” x 6” x 1” (15 x 15 x 2.5cm)
Clay, glaze; 6” x 6” x 1” (15 x 15 x 2.5cm)
Clay, glaze; 6” x 6” x 1” (15 x 15 x 2.5cm)
Clay, glaze; 6” x 6” x 1” (15 x 15 x 2.5cm)
I collect retired jewelry molds from NYC’s Diamond District. Deemed unusable, they no longer serve their single function of reproducing the cavity within. Repurposing them as frames, I cast to capture more than the negative cavity made from the original object, but the marks and spaces we usually don’t see.
Objects and a brooch; Pewter, CZ’s, pearls, tourmalines, silver, steel; 3” x 1.75” x 0.75” (7.5 x 4.5 x 2cm); 2017-2018
Objects and a brooch; Pewter, CZ’s, pearls, tourmalines, silver, steel; 3” x 1.75” x 0.75” (7.5 x 4.5 x 2cm); 2017-2018
Object; Pewter, CZ’s; 3” x 1.75” x 0.75” (7.5 x 4.5 x 2cm); 2018
Object; Pewter, CZ’s; 3” x 1.75” x 0.75” (7.5 x 4.5 x 2cm); 2018
Object; Pewter, CZ’s; 3” x 1.75” x 0.75” (7.5 x 4.5 x 2cm); 2018
Objects; Plaster, cement, graphite, lacquer; 4.5” x 3” x 3” largest (11.5 x 7.5 x 7.5cm); 2016-2017
Object; Plaster, graphite, lacquer; 3” x 2” x 2” (7.5 x 5 x 5cm); 2017
Object; Cement, graphite, lacquer; 5” x 4” x 1” (12.5 x 10 x 2.5cm); 2016
Object; Plaster, graphite, lacquer; 3” x 2” x 1” (7.5 x 5 x 2.5cm); 2016
Objects; Plaster, graphite, lacquer; 4” x 4” x 1” (10 x 10 x 2.5cm); 2016
