Social Practice
This project was my attempt to engage with and find comfort in my community after 17 months of the Covid-19 Pandemic and its effects on my community as well as the global community. My foundation as an artist is in ceramics and this project felt like the right time to return to my roots. I created a large bowl that I intentionally broke. In the spirit of Kintsugi, the philosophy and art that honors breakage and turns repair into art, I offered ceramic shards of the bowl to the public at the Hampden Farmers Market for willing participants to paint with iron oxide as they entered into conversation with me about how they are doing with reentry after the the pandemic. Participants painted whatever they wanted on the shards of pottery while we talked. Some folks were very happy and comfortable with where we are after this time whereas others were masked and anxious about Covid-19 and safety. After the Farmers Market, I mixed a concoction of Hampden clay from my land, as a way to make this project site specific, with a glue and mended the fragments of the bowl back together. As a result, the bowl is an amalgam of images and designs from the community members that participated in the project.