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I engage our human and environmental predicament at the meeting place between serendipity and intention; where the beauty of the sacred found is enriched by fabrication. My art responds to crises in order to be a force for healing – on both individual and community levels. What we pay attention to, and how that affects what we choose to keep or throw away, be they materials, ideas, people, or specifics of the natural environment, can change the stories we tell and the potentials we allow. Materials picked up in the forest and desert, old things, everyday things – long used, or used and discarded – possess a resonance of memory and time; they are rich with meaning, nostalgia and reference. I make use of these references, enhancing, enlarging, and redefining their meanings through combining the unexpected. This process allows me to see how we might deflect a disheartening and destructive trajectory and generate different possibilities for our story.

A nkisi is a container for spirits that was widely used by healers in the 19th and early part of the 20th century in the Congo area of Africa. Nkisi for Remembrance is a contemporary and vernacular interpretation of those ritualistic sculptures created by the healer of a village to protect clients who had been wronged. This nkisi draws from those African sculptures some of their aesthetic elements such as the use of reflective surfaces which reflect both the spirit world and the natural world.

This work is prompted by the clean and efficient movement of the completely developed physique of an Olympic speed skater. It seeks to capture the smooth flowing, seemingly effortless, rhythmic motion which is the essence of the sport. Even the shape of the “ice” base suggests the forward powerful thrust.