Spine

2021

Clay and Stick Installation 

2" x 68" x 26"

Spine was born out of the ideas of containment and repetition. Commemorating the branches of trees that held me when I was younger and which contained my childhood, I began to create a portrait of myself embodied as one of these branches. After finding and then cutting a tree branch to my exact height, I took small pieces of clay and wrapped them around the branch in a very methodical process. There was a rhythm to the work. Portions of my fingerprints and small idents from where I pressed the clay against the wood are visible, further individualizing my self portrait. After completely covering one side of the branch, I then removed the clay pieces and laid them beside the it, essentially creating the negative outline of the branch. The clay is not only another representation of the branch, but also a representation of myself as the individual pieces form vertebrae in a spine that measures to my exact height. When the clay pieces and tree branch are laid besides one another, questions of negative versus positive space, realism versus abstraction, and two versus three dimensionality come into play.