Windgate-Lamar Fellowship
2022
In my practice, I focus on tapping into knowledge passed down to me through my lineage. Art making is a form of prayer in the sense that it allows me to detach from self and become a vessel through which ancestral knowledge may flow. The ideas I have, moments of inspiration, spontaneity in creating -- I receive these as gifts from my ancestors. The act of dissolving self, appreciating all that came before me that defines what and who I am, is the ultimate activation of freedom in this corporal state, navigating a human experience. I honor the knowledge, pain endured, and extreme strength developed through my acts of making that heal me, thus healing and transforming what has been passed down to me energetically and physically. By honoring myself, I honor them. Working with clay is a conversation with the past. The act of hand-building ceramics - vessels and figures alike - taps into the multi-layered activation of both artist and art object. In crafting these objects, I become the vessel. Each vessel I build is endowed with a particular essence derived from the making process and my dynamic with the material itself. When I unite with finished ceramics out of the kiln, I unlock portals occupying space in this immediate and tangible reality. When my ceramics venture out into the world, I am sewing seeds and laying the foundation for portals that I may activate if and when the time comes.