Two years in the making or should I say 37? That's how long I've been writing letters. Journaling since the age of 12. Passages is a project that developed from an idea my best friend and I had back in the early 1990's of doing an art project together with our correspondence.
At age 53, after the Santa Rosa fires, I felt a need to create works of art that incorporated boxes of ephemera I'd been collecting for so many years. As I re-read letters some 20 or 30 years after receiving them, I was flooded with memories and images, yet they seemed to belong to someone else. I felt removed, as if I were exploring the life of another person.
As a young woman, I felt so different than everyone else around me. As I grow older, I see how all of our lives are so universal. We experience so many of the same thoughts and feelings. I had envisioned, "Passages" to be shown in the month of May and June when my students graduate from high school. I wanted them to reflect on the stage they are at and the passages they are embarking on. Though I have used personal items to create the works of art in the show, this exhibit is not about my past but about a universal past.
First feelings of desire, longing, love, the physical pain of a broken heart. All of the insecurities about fitting in, about career and finding oneself. The search for happiness and belonging. Observations about people and places. Books read, movies watched, experiences.
I hope that some people will be able to visit the actual exhibit and experience the artwork in person during this pandemic. A soundscape of music and voices will accompany the exhibit if there is an opening. Every abstract work of art is layered with years of stories which cannot be captured in a video.
As you take this virtual tour, I hope you get a sense of your own passage through life.
Here is a book of the exhibit.
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