The one that got away.

I’m the kind of traveler who has more reading material than shoes in her departing luggage. Returning, I usually have bits of concrete and rock carefully wrapped in scarves and wedged between my never-worn athletic clothes. Whether visiting a new city for public art inspiration or escaping to nature, my trips are spent carefully observing the ground. Terra firma is where I find the most accessible connection to the lands I traverse and the people who inhabit them.

The global pandemic has reminded me that experiences are more meaningful than objects and that taking even the littlest fragment of another peoples’ infrastructure or culture exercises my White Supremacy. And thus, on my first return to the States in 16 months, I had zero souvenirs of the global ubiquitousness of asphalt or concrete.

But boy is possession-in-the-name-of-art a hard habit to break, and I sit here in my cold studio pining for “the one that got away.” Yes, I left a piece of concrete in its natural habitat. Here she is:

I found her on a Caribbean beach. She was a few feet from the water and a few yards from a contemporary condo being meticulously taken apart by locals. Neat piles of floor tiles, timbers piled like Pick Up Sticks, and wires hanging without fixtures suggested people were salvaging every last reusable piece of a once opulent modern-day hacienda. (Don’t get me started on the ratio of dark-skinned staff to light-skinned guests.) I imagine the sea reached “previously unthinkable heights” and came too close for the owner’s comfort. (That or construction has been delayed by years and there’s no concern for the sea’s inland march.)

But this piece, the one that got away, suggests destruction. She was most likely part of a larger sidewalk or exterior surface formed to make the coastal area’s sharp, coral bed less irritating to bare toes. Her grid is too uniform in depth to be an impression left by something on top of her, say tile. And if the surrounding luxury condos indicate this habitat’s function, a “faux tile” would not be appropriate for an interior where shaved coral tiles are the norm. Concrete, after all, is too utilitarian a material.

And this is what I love about using concrete for and in artmaking — making the mundane special.

This little gem of a castoff has given me ideas about reclaiming elements from an emergent piece that has been with me since December 2019, informing next steps in the evolution of the Sidewalk Series. Let’s call this work “Tray” for what it was molded from, a catering tray. Tray was my second and last experiment spray painting asphalt. It convincingly demonstrated that silver leaf on asphalt looks like bad tin foil art, and copper on concrete is too trendy. (Might as well make paperweights for a boutique.)

Tray, as a 14”x14” mini materials test site, has also been taunting me to more fully explore concrete and asphalt’s materiality. It is slowly degrading from gravity — it’s on a 45-ish degree angle — and the fluctuating temperature and humidity of a less-than-perfect-climate-controlled art studio. It is falling apart before my eyes. Sort of like everything else on earth.

I keep thinking I’ll smash it up soon and make it into something else. But it seems as long as the pandemic lasts, Tray will serve a purpose as my own terra firma, teaching me, little by little, what I came to the studio to discover.

“Tray,” the site of so many failure. Now a mini job-site and attempt to sort and recycle all of the original materials.

Welcoming Fear

It just seems all too neat. Too contrived. Six weeks ago, I set off on a journey, a recommitment to my studio practice that included a location move and Marie Kondo-ing decades of supplies. I brought to the new space only drawing and Sidewalk Series materials, books, and video equipment. And my couch. I knew I would figure out what to do next. I expected it to take much longer. And I never imagined it would spring open, literally, with a hatch door.

Today, the unfounded fears I critiqued in my 2013 thesis work, "Hide:Seek," are now founded. The exhibition seems almost prescient in our COVID-19 world. Look at that overly protected woman with a bonnet dusting the solar panels. Does she have nothing better to do? Or does she so fear being cut off from the grid that she stands guard battling every leaf that could between her and connectivity? Watch her balance on boulders precariously tossed on top of each other one hundred years ago. They weren't meant to be supportive, they were made to keep people out, just like the systems underpinning the U.S.'s economy and healthcare that are now laid bare and crumbling. And that pink bandana she's mending, a mask?

The work of creating fictitious companies that sold water filtration straws alongside fuzzy slippers and inventing characters who prioritized fashion over function manifested my personal and domestic struggles of the time — namely, a failed marriage and generations of fear that wanted to be exorcised from my body. But there were kernels of truth in that work that had always been with me and which continue to sustain my practice today, such as my love of urbanity and imagining alternate realities. They were sown seven years ago and have confirmed my belief in the transformative power of staying with uncertainty, and of working through fear to get to a better place.

Today, I'm the same artist. Still prioritizing fashion. Still wildly imaginative and overly ambitious. I happen to be running a real organization now, a non-profit that attempts to bring the thorny issues of our times and support other artists in their journeys. We make public art. But the fears that sparked the creation of Alone Together Tent Dress and Unpack, and the concerns of running a $1.5M endeavor lurk in the same dark shadows. There, I whisper, " I can't do this alone. Are we on the brink, or is it my imagination? Am I doing enough? And how can we do this better, together?"

Scarcity thinking keeps you and me small. But it doesn't mean we need to put a pencil between our teeth and force a smile. (Ever try it? It works.) It's ok to look at this train wreck before us, to witness the failure of government and of people to protect our most vulnerable. It's ok, and probably a little useful, for us to feel survivor's guilt.

It's also necessary to play.

So, while we wait out the timeline of this pandemic and ponder what public life will look like in the future, I'm committed to acting out these new/old fears that have once again taken hold of my imagination. I'm leaping off of metaphorical rocks, unsure if it means I'm overjoyed or certifiable. Today, I opened the roof hatch. The last time I was on the roof of my apartment modeling Ilumina Tanks, Boston was reopening after the Marathon Bombing. It's a physical place I've been in before. It's mental territory I need to navigate again. I brought my video camera home. I have my sewing machine. And I know what needs to happen next.

I invite you to walk with me as I blunder around in these physical, mental, and digital spaces. I'm not keeping this door locked any longer.

Collection of...

I’m thrilled to announce that four works from the Sidewalk Series are now part of the Fidelity Corporate Art Collection. Fidelity supports local artist communities in areas where it has a business presence and engage associates with dynamic, thought-provoking works of museum-quality art in all the spaces where they work. It gives me great joy to know some old pieces of cast-off sidewalk are now part of this prestigious contemporary art collection.

On the Line

Those who know me know how often I'm looking down admiring cracks in the pavement and sidewalks. Museum and gallery floors too. Cracks are everywhere! They're nature's way of exerting her presence. "You can't tame me", she cries.

I love drawing cracks. I love looking for patterns within them. I love extracting the bits and pieces that are created by these fissures. And lately I've become a bit obsessed with collecting them. Chances are on any given day I have a hunk of concrete in my pocket. I live in Boston and we're in the middle of a building boom. Need I say more?

I first started making the Sidewalk Series of asphalt and concrete miniatures this summer as I was exploring my urban neighborhood's connection to nature. Or lack there of. Each time I found a chunk of asphalt on my walk I'd pick it up and imagine it as a tiny landscape. I'd ask myself what could live there, where the water source might be, and what resources could be hidden inside.

When asked to contribute to On the Line, a group exhibit with one artist from each of the ten stops on the MBTA's new Fairmount-Indigo commuter rail I knew exactly what I'd contribute. The ten new Sidewalk Series pieces in On the Line were all collected within a half-mile radius of my home. Most came from a development parcel in Chinatown where I first filmed the Alone Together Tent Dress demonstration in 2013 and where I returned in 2015 to photograph the tent for Interdependence. During the intervening years a tower with luxury lofts and affordable housing was built. The adjacent wedge of land squeezed between the road and highway ramp is still a beautiful mess of "art supplies" and the last refugee in the area for those without a home. 

One the Line
curated by Medicine Wheel Productions' Spoke Gallery and UMass Boston's Trotter Institute
February 3—April 15, 2015

Spoke Gallery
110 K Street, 2nd floor, Boston, MA 02127
Gallery hours: Wed—Fri 12—5pm and Saturdays by appointment

Sidewalk Series, 2016. Found asphalt and concrete, modeling turf and gold leaf. Click for more images including the Chinatown development parcel.