believe me: snake, punched Braille on gold foil paper on paper, 13′ x 75′ variable. Asheville School, Asheville, NC. Spring 2019.
believe me: snake is the outcome of a residency/workshop with the Visual Arts department at Asheville School. The exercise, working with teacher Casey Arbor and her students, was a collaborative effort in object, production and conversation. Based on social discourse in a democratic contemporary society, conversations centered on cultural influence on systems of belief, opinion and value. Creating a data base of popular keywords proliferating in current technological media rounded out the conversation. This list was then used to hand punch Braille gold foil panels as a means to codify the intrinsic value of language, and translation of language. With the end goal to create a wall-based installation, the students created a short list and voted on the end design – the snake. Allowing the students agency in the design and production, they laid out and installed the snake within a few days. During production and installation, a constant conversation on semantics and the value of words hummed throughout.
Through my Braille works, I am exploring the anthropologic quality of Braille and considering the metaphorical implications of human interaction. I think of what it is like to possess perfect vision, yet the junction of one’s philosophies and ideologies creates impairment. When we can’t see beyond our own ideas, we accept them as sufficient. What if we were to shift, even slightly? Might a glimmer recalibrate our optics, our perceptions?
Believe me: Flag (small), 2016 – ongoing, punched Braille on gold foil paper on paper, felt cloth, 39 x 65 inches. Defining The Art of Change in the Age of Trump, The Center for Contemporary Political Art, Washington DC, September 28 – November 14, 2018.
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Believe me is a self-reflective U.S. flag exorcising meditation about one’s character, actions, and motives. Signifying language, value and principles, the flag is constructed of gold ‘brick’ panels, each displaying inflammatory, derogatory and incendiary words spoken and texted by President Trump. Collected as data and transcribed in Braille, the title is taken directly from his language as a means to influence, infect and validate. As an individual, parent, educator, and a US citizen, this level of language used by anyone in a public forum is unacceptable. Believe me is both a protest and an opportunity. It is a time-based work on inexpensive gold foil paper and codified to intentionally obstruct information, entangling the viewer within its materiality, content and irony. Come see yourself. You will be very, very, very amazed! Believe me.
Believe me: Pyramid, 2016-ongoing, punched Braille on gold foil paper, gold cloth and hand-made book, 10′ x 28′ plus pedestal. Installed in Faculty Biennial,” Weizenblatt Gallery, Mars Hill University, NC, August 21 – September 21, 2018.
Believe me, 2016 – ongoing, punched Braille on gold foil paper on paper, felt cloth, 120″ x 66″, ARTexchange, College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles. Public Reception, February 23, 5:30-7:30, L.A. Convention Center.
Believe me: Wall, 2016 – ongoing, punched Braille on gold foil paper on paper, felt cloth, 10′ x 24′. London District Studios, Asheville, NC. Oct. 7-Nov. 4, 2017.
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Believe me is a self-reflective wall exorcising meditation about one’s character, actions, and motives. Signifying language, value and principles, the wall is constructed of thousands of gold ‘brick’ panels, each displaying inflammatory, derogatory and incendiary words spoken and texted by President Trump. Collected as data and transcribed in Braille, the title is taken directly from his language as a means to influence, infect and validate. As an individual, parent, educator, and a US citizen, this level of language used by anyone in a public forum is unacceptable. Believe me is both a protest and an opportunity. It is a time-based work on inexpensive gold foil paper and codified to intentionally obstruct information, entangling the viewer within its materiality, content and irony. A central table is the locus for a unique, hand-made book contextualizing the wall. The book, like the wall continually grows its list of words, indexing, vocabulary, graphics and statement. Come see yourself. You will be very, very, very amazed! Believe me.
Through my Braille works, I am exploring the anthropologic quality of Braille and considering the metaphorical implications of human interaction. I think of what it is like to possess perfect vision, yet the junction of one’s philosophies and ideologies creates impairment. When we can’t see beyond our own ideas, we accept them as sufficient. What if we were to shift, even slightly? Might a glimmer recalibrate our optics, our perceptions?
