Artist Statement for my most recent works.

Sort of in process artist statement:

The influences of my most recent work come simply from my interest and love of sea urchins. I spent my summers growing up in New jersey and have always felt a very strong love for the sea. So when I moved out to Colorado I naturally brought a bunch of dead sea life with me. I guess I never really suspected I would use it for art, in fact when I started my undergraduate program I was exclusively a painter. I Started using sea urchins as inspiration for ceramic pieces about a year ago when i was having a really hard time coming up with new ideas.
First I used them purely for there aesthetic value, making tiles with spikes and attaching spikes to every type of form I could make. I think I realized the real potential with the spikes when I made my piece “I’m Lovin’ It” in which I made a place setting for two with McDonald's cheeseburgers on the plates. I was able to manipulate the tendrils on that piece to look like they were retreating from the cheeseburgers in disgust and I think that was my first taste of the life that these pieces can really have. This particular piece was one of my more political works. i find its so hard tody to stay away from the draw of consumer goods, of the corporate influence and conviences that we are getting so so accustomed to. I don’t really want to pass judgement on anyone but merely start a conversation.
More recently my work has become much more systematic and process based. In a way I’m almost exploring my own emotional response to creating the work. I’ve always been an extremely disorganized person in every aspect of my life, and I’ve finally discovered how to overcome that in my artwork. Each piece is made in almost the same way and though I follow a pattern, the clay has a life of its own and brings its own character to the sculpture. My new sculptures embody the tension of our society right now in the political sate that it is in as well as my own personal anxieties. They seem to be alive or to have once been alive but they are also static, stuck in place but also transforming.
I want my viewers to be able to have as intimate an experience in the gallery as i do while making them in the studio. Sea urchins are very sensitive creatures themselves. They are sensitive to both light and touch as are my sculptures. The fragility of each little organism is nerve-wracking and I think in a lot of ways they speak to our fears, the fear of being hurt or fear of death.They are strangely interesting and even if that is all you get from them, thats ok.