Wall Installation. Soldered Tin Cans, Archival Digital Prints on Laminated Acetate, wire, 6’H x 6’W x 10”D
MATTERS is made, literally, of two ‘matters’: metal and transparent acetate- each with contrasting qualities such as sharpness/softness, density/lightness, and contraction/expansion. The contrasting qualities of these materials seek to describe the experience of adapting to loss, to hurt, to longing and wonder.
In 2011 and 2012 respectively, seven months apart, I lost my father, then my mother to cancer.
For my mother, a risk-taker and incredibly loving being, I made ornaments from dozens of interconnected steel/tin can lids, cut and modified into delicate diatom-like forms. She told me of a Christmas when I was a baby, in which she, having very little money, made ornaments with tin cans for the tree. After she died, I found several hundred tin can lids and 40+ year-old instructional ‘how-to’ books on how to make ornaments from tin cans. I made my own ornaments, I thought of her life, of my time with her through these last years, and adapted her intentions to my own.
For my father, a voracious reader, writer, an intellectual, and expert welder, I taught myself to solder the metal to create this piece. I grew up working in his shop, and under his wing I learned many life lessons.
Their influence has affected all of us in so many ways, and will continue to do so. I am still learning so much from them and feel their support. They mattered.
