Awkward
In this body of work I have focused on my adolescent years, as they contained the most magnificent display of awkwardness in my life. Puberty was the uncanny transition between cuteness of childhood and familiar appearance of adulthood.  During this time children are developing their first concrete concept of self as they are bombarded with the social world and the consequential pressure to conform and find connection among peers. 

Particularly, I am thinking about how media culture, such as magazines, informed and shaped my early life. As an adolescent, magazines not only provided me with important supplemental education on how to behave as a heteronormative female, but they also served as material and creative outlet to cut apart, re-assemble, and construct a world where I could belong. 

“It’s profoundly counter-intuitive for us to think of ourselves as mad. We seem so normal and mostly so good – to ourselves. It’s everyone else who is out of step… And yet maturity begins with the capacity to sense and, in good time and without defensiveness, admit to our own craziness. If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun. ”

— Alain de Botton

This body of work utilizes materials of my youth such as clay, hot glue, glitter, lanyard, beads and hair to create intimate sculptures. It evokes a sense of play by combining these period-specific materials. I give their materiality new meaning by re-appropriating the context in which it’s applied. 

I work in pieces and parts.  I produce thousands of pieces for hundreds of parts, which over time speak to each other and come together to birth miniature worlds. I then observe the final sculptures and edit back what has been made. Each individual smaller piece stands alone as its own microcosm of sculpture.  Then through chance and observations of how these pieces interact, larger sculptures are formed. The final editing process is much like that of a production potter. I make and re-make and reform my creations until they capture the essence of beauty within the awkward experience. For every sculpture I choose to show, there are ten which I do not. But those works which are not shown influence and support the work we see here today.

I am interested in awkwardness. What is it? Where does it come from? How do we feel awkward in our own bodies? How do we witness awkwardness in others? I believe the feeling of awkwardness is experienced when our inner monologue butts up against a societal norm. It is a display of yearning to fit in, navigating how, and potentially never learning. I am particularly interested in adolescence, as it is the most concentrated and magnificent display of awkwardness during our lives.  In this work, I use personal experiences in pre-teen/teenage years as evidence and inspiration in awkwardness. By using my personal “coming of age” story, I am hoping to connect the viewer to the shared experience of growing up and becoming oneself. I don’t want to leave anything out, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I seek to critique the social, cultural and gender molds we put ourselves into. In conjunction with clay I use materials of my youth, such as, paint, hot glue, glitter, beads, lanyard and hair