Shoes that Walk or An Attempt at Exhaustion

Sharpening a pencil

Clarity.

Clarity through grief.

Right grief.

Grieving rightly.

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My maternal great-grandfather made a living as a feather dyer. Its not clear whether Grandpa Frank dyed in Austria, or if he picked up the trade upon settling in Tribeca in 1942. The huge vats of dye stuff emitted noxious fumes and respiring into lung cancer, eventually took his life. This trade is in me somehow. This instinct of coloration and soaking in tubs lingers inside of me. I follow the blog of natural dyers, of quilt makers, and weavers. I imagine projects of this sort made out of sheep’s wool. Projects to be worn. Projects to be woven.

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I am working on visualizing “mass”. Mass displacement, mass incarceration, mass murder. These numbers are read, in the five and six digits, but difficult to conceive of. Impossible to hold in our singular flesh such a crowd of suffering bodies. This is a ceramic project that formally, physically, symbolically suits. Innummerable casts from the same mold– outputs similar but varying objects, riddled with imperfections, most of which are looked over in the context of the multitude. All of the objects are porcelain, all of the objects are white. How do we read porcelain when it is whole, shattered, or dust? How do we punish imperfect objects? By glancing over them, dismissing them, damaging them further? How do we punish whole groups of people in our society and others? By glancing over them, dismissing them, damaging them further.

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Complementary color paintings situating emotions and their opposites