Identity

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes up the sum of my Self. Who I want to be is wrapped up in disguises of who I was told I was, who I was expected to be, how I am perceived, along with all that my own personal DNA, history, and built-in social structure encompasses. This body of work, Identities, not only explores my own search for who I am at my core, but it also explores the many landscapes we each navigate. Without judgment, these images combine the past with the present, found photographs, mass media imagery, and old family photos, to explore ideas of the self while wrapped up in everything that makes that personal journey a joy and an obstacle course.

Spirit

Thinking about spiritual belief systems.

Spiritual choices whether atheist, New Age, religious, or agnostic, shape not only the self but the community that Self resides within. Lately I have been contemplating how these beliefs evolve over a lifetime and how the Self transforms along with those evolutions.

Analog collage 9”x12” made using an inherited image of Saint Gemma and Mass media imagery. 2022.

Family

Thinking about how each family is unique...

Now more than ever, what we have long held as the traditional family structure is evolving into communities driven by love, support, and shared necessities, rather than the groups we are born into or considered more acceptable by society. Importance of who we can count on, who we want to evolve with in our own story, is being practiced as a true way to nurture and as an honest way to honor the ideas of Family. I think of this as Family of choice.

Analog collage made using vintage cabinet cards, 2022

History

Thinking about the self as a structure, an evolving landscape, and our DNA.

How does a shared history contribute to what an individual holds onto, incorporates into, or sheds?

Analog collage, 2022. Made using mass media imagery with an inherited family photo and a Polaroid photograph .

Aging

Thinking about stages of life and all that means - beauty, wisdom, fragility/strength, shifts in priorities, how we are perceived…

Analog collage made in 2022 using cabinet card and mass media imagery.

Womanhood

Thinking about the unknown, the ignored, and the lack of public comfort with discussing natural cycles every woman experiences.

It’s astounding how little we truly know about a woman’s complete body/mind connection. Furthermore, it feels disheartening to ponder how much shame is worked into female identity.

Analog collage made in 2022 using a vintage cabinet card and a snippet of an art master’s sky.

Power

Thinking about how the narrative of Power is built within each of us.

This exploration includes power issues built from our personal and collective history and environments as well as the idea of personal power.

This piece evolved through different ideas of social structure, race, patriarchy, but ultimately I didn’t want to focus on one idea of power because I believe that each of us has a different experience with control and being controlled. This could include, for example, the limitations put upon oneself.

This is an analog and a digital collage made in 2022 using mass media imagery and a vintage cabinet card.

Community

Thinking about identity in terms of what we show outwardly and why.

How do different labels, (“Hipster”, “Millennial”, “Hippie”, “Loner”, etc.) conformity, or individuality contribute to what make up or shift ideas of ourselves? Choices such as what kind of facial hair to grow or what clothes to wear have great impact on how we choose to not only enhance our own life but also on how we choose to integrate or hide within different communities.

Analog collage made in 2022 using a vintage cabinet card and mass media imagery.

Being

Thinking about identity, the Self, in terms of who each of us feels at home with as well as who each of us feels most comfortable being.

Contemplating how personal choices of who we want to be goes well beyond pronouns and sexual preferences.

Analog collage using vintage cabinet cards, 2022

Psyche

This piece reflects on the inner voice(s) and the Ego. In doing so, I thought about what we create and imagine for ourselves to bring inner harmony, peace, and clarity. I also wanted to incorporate the idea of mental health and the way our mind affects how we can get stuck or move through the uncomfortable, the difficult, and/or the obstacles.

This analog collage was made using vintage cabinet cards and a snippet of Van Goh’s “Wheatfield with Crows” made in the last weeks of his life. Many look to this painting to reflect on VG’s mental state at the time.

Inheritance

Thinking about how the inherited story defines our current narrative.

How does the family we are born into, our collective histories, and personal choices affect our own paths as well as those of future generations? How affected by our own ancestry are we?

This analog collage uses a piece of Klimt’s “Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein”, along with a vintage cabinet card. In researching the story of Margaret’s life, I was struck by how much she was able to move within her own story while also navigating her privilege and life as a woman in the early-mid 1900s.

{To learn more about each image, hover over that image.}