They Breathe in Me As Angels

From left to right:  

Angel 6, 2022, ceramic and glaze, 6.5 x 6 x 2.5";  Angel 13, 2022, ceramic and glaze, 5 x 7 x 3.5"; Angel 8, 2022, ceramic and glaze,  6 x 5 x 4.5";
Angel 5, 2022, ceramic and glaze, 6 x 5.5 x 4.5"; Angel 9, 2022, ceramic and glaze, 8 x 4.5 x 2.5"; Angel 10, 2022, ceramic and glaze, 5.5 x 5.5 x 2"

“[T]hey breathe in me as angels]” is taken from a line in the poem Integrity by Adrienne Rich (1978). I give form to private experiences and sensations in painting and sculpture. I am most preoccupied with the feelings that are difficult or uncomfortable to verbalize. Seeking a color, texture and form that embodies that experience provides me perspective on those sensations and the opportunity to peel my identity away from them. They have a life, an existence outside of me. I can appreciate their importance, their power, their beauty, their smallness. And then I can put them away. My confessionalist practice honors ugly, nuanced or difficult experiences. Each abstract landscape or figure becomes a jewel in the box of the psyche. Each carries its own memories. Each is responsible for shaping me. Each has whispered triumphs and grievances into my muscles and my dreams. In this box are confessions of that which makes me human and makes me whole.