Advanced Fiber Studio (Highlights)
Nostalgia is nothing without the interplay of the present with memories of the past. In everyday life there are many opportunities to experience a simple moment’s beauty that can at once bring the present experience and memories of the past to your attention. These moments can make you stop in your tracks; make you remember something you had not thought of since it happened years ago. Most of those opportunities are passed up or overlooked, but when they are appreciated there is a true sense of past experiences merging with the present; a sense of magic, a sense of nostalgia.
I am a process-based fibers and materials artist working to express ideas centered around the unyielding desperation of nostalgia and memory through installation. The past I draw upon is that of my own childhood in rural, mountainous Virginia as well as that of physical, over-looked spaces within the everyday. In effort to expose these desperate feelings I employ materials and processes frequently found in art therapy involving repetition of action, shape, or movement. I take advantage of lighting and shadows to create a memorialization and romaniticization of the moment within the installation, much like the way many people think of nostalgia.