artist’s statement

On December 18, 2018, my sister was brutally murdered by a man who should have never had access to a gun. This continuing series explores my experiences through grief with the loss of a loved one as well as the grief associated with gun violence and the ripple effect on my self, my family and our communities.  

The number 11 is used throughout each piece, representing the 11 bullets that killed my sister and the 11th of December, the day my sister died.  

My objective is to create a connection to one another through our individual grief.  We are all grieving the losses of 2020 and 2021 and grieving the fear of the unknown. 

I am two and a half years into my grief.  My art has become my witness.  I have no place to store the grief so I contain it into small alter-like spaces.  I translate my darkest moments while also examining how grief is often dismissed in American culture. 

I have been exploring all of the places and spaces that I have visited in my grief.  The way my physical body and mind have been affected by grief has fascinated me.  Grief is a full body, mind, and spacial experience.  Each alter-like work of art includes natural elements that were personally significant to a specific time, feeling, smell, sight, sound or memory:  wood, dried botanicals and found objects.  Therefore, this particular series of work is impermanent.  Items may further dry and drop but new items can be added later.  Art changing and transforming, as is my grief. 

Grief is the worst pain I’ve ever felt, but it is also very beautiful. Grief brought with it memories of a book of fairy tales that my sisters and I shared as children.  Fairy tales are dark and terrifying, but they are also full of magic, good and evil, beauty, love, and courage.  I have found many correlations between my grief and these fantastical tales.

Vulnerability is a theme throughout my work.  I struggle with the intimacy of sharing this type of pain publicly.  I’ve decided that my vulnerability comes with an intention: social impact and change.  Gun violence in our country is a problem.  My sister’s story as well as my own and my family’s needs to be told, along with all of the other victims and families of gun violence in the United States.