ARTIST STATEMENT

Recently my research and exploration of processes utilizing Water Jet Cutters and Hydraulic Pressing culminated in a body of work titled, “Speaking As A Sinner”. The pieces in this body of work are about reclamation, balance, healing, and carrying burden. The objects consider good and evil and the holy and the heathen as they are defined in Catholicism. They are intended to reclaim Catholic rituals, symbols, and icons and place the ceremony of worship on the self. Created to adorn the body, these works center the wearer in a ritual of reclamation, healing, protecting, and loving the self as the church* asks us to love god*. I offer moments of tactility through soft materials that can soothe or bring comfort. And yet, caged metal forms restrain comfort and pleasure. Some adornments are bulbous and heavy, intentionally weighing on the body. This heaviness can bring either comfort or burden. Do we accept or reject it? Are we accepted into heaven or rejected to hell? Other objects are created for self defense or fetish. Through them, one can symbolically protect the self from the trauma and burdens that haunt them, or release themselves by giving in to pleasure and sensation. Each of these works was created to bring fetish, pain, and pleasure to a ritual that reclaims the self from the shackles of the church* with the intention to heal and release the burdens of being betrayed by the faith. 

*lowercase intentional