Fitting in with the Squares

Fitting In With The Squares (Self-Portrait) - Porcelain Norman Rockwell commemorative plates, wood, 67”x 47”, 2019.

Fitting in with the Squares appeared to me as I came to terms with the results of the 2016 presidential election. Two items stood out as I sorted my studio: an accidental self-portrait taken on a point and shoot camera in the late 90's and a giant a collection of Norman Rockwell plates I'd amassed from thrift stores over the last decade. Initially the shared color palette of the image and the plates came together for me but it was the incongruence of their content that set me into motion.

During the eighteen-month process of cutting down approximately 300 plates into about 9000 pieces so I could cull 2400 of the right tone and pattern, the cultural value of the commemorative plates and the personal underpinnings of the image became clear. Making this piece slowly revealed the formative and persistent role of resistance and resilience in my life.

In the woman in the this portrait, I see shades of my mother, who raised me in an era she fought to secure. I see a woman with greater agency over her life than her foremothers. I see a woman who knows what to take from life, what to leave, and how to build a future out of the pieces that fit."