BFA_2007 Show

Reliquary for Compacted Distance
intaglio, relief, silkscreen & collage

Remains
handmade accordion fold book with intaglio, relief & silkscreen

in the background where you see two rectangles, those are my other pieces

Artist statement:

There are curious histories of shrouds. This is not all. Memory’s architecture is neither palatial nor theatrical but soft.

—Lisa Robertson

Memories become shrouded, swallowed by the past. In my work I am searching through my own memories and considering collective memory. The juxtaposition of disparate elements causes questions of memory, history, thought and identity to play upon the latent tension in all of us to remember details and solidify our understanding of space and place. Even while the exact meaning of the particular imagery in my work remains unclear, narratives can form in the viewer’s mind.

Old photographs, keepsakes, and other ephemera intrigue me for the sense of the “other” they leave behind. When we look at them or touch them, we are keenly aware of an absence, and question the identity and memory of the people who may have possessed them before us. I am exploring these questions through a visual poetics of memory that can stir questions in the viewer as well. Using printmaking techniques, I can layer transparently and erode the original images to suggest something ethereal, ghostly or faint paired with sharper images to create a tension revolving around the inaccessibility of memory and the anonymity of it.

Expected light

For those of you who use gmail, there is a beta feature called google docs that allows you to upload your documents on the web to share or publish them. You can share editing rights which I could see being useful for collaborative writing experiments and probably a lot of other things as well. For fun, I uploaded my new chapbook. While the formatting is a little off, if you are interested you can view it to at least get an idea of what it is all about. It's as close as I can get to the old live journal cut feature. So for those interested, enjoy!

No fixed position and often misplaced.

I said I’d do this even with the pause in my throat and the holes in the fleshy part of my cheek where hair could creep through. It was dark and she reached out her hand so my fingers could mitten around hers and I didn’t have to worry quite as much. I apologized to the woman and feasted on what was there. I am still empty and my words do not resonate. I’m sure I will learn to draw again. Close laboring and attention will open the door to succinct spreads and late night adrenaline. I’ll say nothing and wonder where the words can be had for the plucking. In sleep the music sounded just like home.

in progress.

in time
we accumulated so many
mirages

in our mouths
shrouds trembled
signs of decay

tips & crooks
of fingers held
each moment
listed off with hands
outstretched

I counted them
saw only emptiness
felt—nothing

(disintegrating into fragments of shards both of us)

like so many mirages

unhinged tight lips scattered
our secrets
then sealed & contained

ashes

why do we speak in
intangibilities?

I hold them all in my fist
these signs of decay

nothing more than stand-ins

only clench tight or
like everything else
scatter

to ashes

the list continues
drifts
in fragments

we’re fading too

(in our mouths shrouds trembled signs of decay)

You vote.

Would you rather see a (okay my) chapbook title like this:

Assay of proof (the secret still secretly
known is secret) while we wandered along
the material side, material structures,
breadth & depth--constantly moving one to
the next, the inner space & expected
light--all the dead long for vision.

or one phrase or word from above text such as:

Expected Light

I'm almost done with the chapbook I have been working on this semester but I am having a hard time deciding on the title. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

More pictures of artwork soon as well as other poetry goodies.