Artist Statement

The entire identity of any given person is made up of connections. This is especially clear from a neurological standpoint. Human functionality and memory is dependent upon the synapses in the brain. Our synapses form relationships between neurons; associations between one thought and another. These neurological connections that we form and strengthen every day make up the basic electrochemical foundation of our consciousness.

The cruciality of connections is also observable on a personal level. We don’thave direct access to the neurology that creates our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, but we can see and feel the impact of it. Thus, we come to understand our thoughts by doing what humans have always done: creating narrative connections between things we can experience, but cannot see. Narrative, the card catalogue of the human mind, is the system that allows us to categorize the massive quantity of information stored in our brains, and to navigate it even though we can’t observe it.

Interpersonally speaking, we form connections with other people by sharing bits of our minds with them. Through the sharing of stories, we swap bits of the neurological pathways that form our identities. The process of sharing our internal cognitive relationships is what allows us to create external relationships, which, in turn, alter our internal relationships. Narrative is the primary tool through which we alter our identities and ultimately grow and change as people.

With this thought process in mind, I seek to relate to the world around me through narrative. I use the making process to clarify my experiences; to help mequantify and categorize the associations in my brain. This allows me to transform my otherwise diffused and disorderly cognitive processes into something solid and tangible; to slow the world around me down to the speed of making and give shape to my thoughts. The final product, as an artifact of this process, is then used to share my storyand experiences with others when trauma disables my brain’s verbal abilities. Theobjects I create exist outside of my ability to communicate in any given moment, and therefore are vital tools in my relationships with the external world. The objects I make enable me to create narrative connections between my thoughts, and to share these connections with the world around me; by so doing, they allow me to process, grow, and heal.