Vessels for Collective Grieving
In the midst of the pandemic, I revived an interest of mine from childhood: artwork, furnishings, and rituals related to life after death. I am actively developing tomb pottery and sculpture for the home as a way to breathe new life into our daily relationships with loss. I increasingly use figurative imagery, ossuaries, burial clothes, urns, and other elements associated with first & secondary burial practices to explore themes of autonomy, resilience, and collective action. Shades of green and brown throughout this body of work evoke life-giving properties of the earth and the stereotypically feminine, while simultaneously representing diverse skin tones: those of the global majority and my own (olive).
Made exclusively from reclaimed clay with a naturally brown tone that is enhanced in reduction atmospheres. Firing temperatures in this series range from cone 5 or 6 (midrange) to cone 10 (high fire).
