Over the summer, I was part of a wonderful online residency program where I focused on expanding into a few different new mediums. My goal was to push myself into assemblage work while incorporating encaustic still in some way, with a theme of personal exploration. I’ve done a lot of self portraits over the years, but I wanted to explore a different way of doing self portraiture. I wanted to explore using objects that hold meaning to me personally… and use images that didn’t have me physically in them.

CONCEPT:
With the goal of making a self portrait in a new way, this work tells pieces of my own stories across my almost-40 years. Fishing net, photography, beeswax, old found bits and handmade vessels… there is so much of me here that only I know about really. Stories from my childhood, when I used to collect discarded things, I think, because I felt discarded myself in a way after my mother died. The brass key is one of those items (I still have the original brass key I rescued from the gutter, on my studio shelf). Stories from my teenage years, when I used to ride my bike across town to go watch shrimp boats fishing and cargo ships coming into the harbor, and I’d write and draw for hours. Stories from my twenties, where I lost and found myself more times than I can count… mostly in books, art, music and in a love that was taken from me too soon. And stories from today, from the midwestern forests I now roam and the new love I now know, and the person I have become after all these years. This is the place I’ve finally embraced that nature unlocks me - and all of us - in beautiful ways. I really don’t know what is seen by others in this piece, but I see an entire lifetime of myself teased out in just a few prominent objects. This was such an incredible way to make and to tell a story - so different from what I am used to!

PROCESS:
Building this piece was new and challenging. I’m not used to constructing with rigid materials like boxes and frames and wood. This kind of making has never been my strong suit. Thankfully, my husband can build just about anything, and knows all the best ways to glue, nail, and adhere pieces of different materials together. With a few tips from him on the how’s and when’s of construction, I was able to start moving forward into new territory. Still, I found myself resisting at each new phase of building this piece … there was something about the permanence. The knowing that once it is glued down, it cannot be undone. Something about this was so challenging to move past, and often times the piece sat for several weeks just laid together before I got the guts to glue it! Overall, it was an exciting new process to play with though, and I enjoyed digging through things both in vintage shops and in my own collection for what moved me most!

REFLECTIONS:
Working on this piece was so revealing. I’d never realized before, but most of my art processes avoid permanence for as long as I am able! Working in clay, wax, and digital photography… there is always a way to undo aspects of what I make. There is always the chance to change my mind, uproot it all, or start over, at least up to a certain point. Creating in a way that felt more “decided” and concrete from earlier on was very alien to me.

This project revealed to me that this avoidance of the permanent has really been a theme all my life. I tend to never want to create anything in my life that feels like it cannot be changed, uprooted, or altered. I am endlessly indecisive, about art pieces and what toppings to order on my pizza. I’ve endured a lot of “uprooting” in my life due to death and loss, so I suppose that’s a part of it. To me, anything that feels final tends to feel like loss, like I’ve lost the ability to still have input or control or interaction with it. Which of course, isn’t really true, but seems to be my lifelong instinct. I don’t like much of anything feeling “set in stone” - no thanks!

While not so natural for me, I did really enjoy making this piece. I enjoyed how cathartic it was. How it allowed me to revisit some parts of my own story in deep ways, and visually honor those pieces of myself. I can definitely see doing more assemblage work in the future!

- With Love - 
Sarah