It Leads to the Ocean
Collect. Clean. Organize. Systemize. Drill. Sew. Form. Step Back. Repeat.
My art is as much about the process as it is about making people look at things differently. I is about putting broken pieces together to create a story out of what gets thrown away, forgotten, and eventually ends up where it is unwelcome.
As children we collect things: handfuls of flowers, pinecones on snowy ski slopes, heart shaped rocks, shells by the seashore, trash. You may think the last collectable to be out of place… Trash? Who collects trash other than hoarders and the garbage man on Tuesdays? Well I do, and it has to be my favorite collection thus far and where I believe my love of art and the creation was born and continues to be fostered.
Growing up on the small island of Kaua’i there isn’t much room for trash. It accumulates and piles up and then finds its way to the ocean. By creating art out of what I collect on the beaches, I am not only illuminating the global issue of waste, but I am also bringing beauty to a material that is in its definition useless and harmful as well.
Standing on its own a sculpture made from what eventually finds its way to the ocean is powerful, yet in its essence unreachable, untouchable. when it is a wearable object it becomes you; you are the trash, you contribute to the trash, it is all encompassing. No longer a fish our of water you become the fish entwined in the netting.
Sounds of the Ocean
University of Puget Sound Senior Show 2018
