Ceramic Objects
Lymphocytes
2012
My father’s death has always been shrouded in mystery. Complicated questions were answered with single words, but never truthful ones: cancer, lymphoma, infection. AIDS was the one word that could honestly explain my father’s death, but to my family this knowledge seemed violent and destructive. It had the potential to mutate our individual identity and family history. Though the physical threat of AIDS was no longer immediately present (it died along with my father) there was still a fear of contamination. My family’s lies about my father were attempts to sterilize the situation and keep me, as a child, from suffering with the pain and sigma of AIDS.
The forms I created for this installation are inspired by the cellular structures of the diseases that killed my father. Lymphoma as the pseudonym, and Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS-AIDS), the true disease that caused his death. The forms are enclosed in a sterile plastic room. You can choose to enter the room and come into contact with the forms, or you can remain on the periphery and view a shadowy, distorted version of them.
White Works
2009
These works center on the relationship between form and function. In each work I attempt to create an “environment” where the piece is defined by the intersection of form and function. The base of the work consists of a wheel thrown piece that has been altered by attaching radiating “arms” that both reference the base form, but also redefine space. The base serves as both the physical and conceptual anchor of the piece. Physically, the base supports the radiating arms. Conceptually the base functions as “the vessel”--the link to the functional craft tradition. The arms on the piece are the dynamic elements. Though they stem from traditional forms such as handles and spouts, they act as neither. They serve no function other than to define space, yet, their presence alters the viewer’s perception of the central vessel. The presence of the arms challenges the viewer’s understanding of piece’s implied function and purpose. Through this series I intended to create aesthetic and harmonious pieces that still embodied a tension between form and function.