How can we get noticed if we’re all doing the same things? (confidence)

My work considers ideas about the differences between labor and leisure–two concepts that took on even newer meanings during our months of mandatory quarantine.  My work also explores the relationship between how we choose to spend our time and what that says about what we value.  Again, two concepts that were highlighted repeatedly, and in new ways, during this time.  Both pieces in this show were made as part of my larger body of work that speaks about personal and cultural acts of narcissism, but I selected them for this exhibition because they can also be read effectively through the lens of quarantine motherhood, a time when extreme self-reflection was required for survival.

cyanotype on cotton muslin and pink patterned cotton, pink satin, pinto beans and dismembered stuffed animals

The pandemic was emotionally difficult and challenging because we were always on top of one another; there was no physical space and therefore mental space felt collapsed. My children’s worlds became small and sometimes too compressed for their big emotions. Time is still long and deep but not in the way the first five – six months of the pandemic felt. Now it’s pockmarked with hope, things don’t feel as desperate, only now we face the fear of what it means to come back out into the light without masks. I wonder when the kids will play and feel with abandon like they used to. This work titled Fortification, is created using cyanotype and forms inspired by my children; toys, sounds and pillows for movies, and fighting and care.