A Note on Why I've Been Quiet

The past year has been, as I am certain it has been for many, a bit of a trial.

Personally, I've been... hiding? Stealing the space and time needed for the necessary and painful processes of healing. Learning to function as a better human despite the imperfections of my body and the scarred bits of my soul. Struggling to comprehend lessons which I've carried too much shame for not having learned yet (despite never really having a teacher), and setting down that extra burden, too.  Slowly mastering the curricula of my self.

I do live to create, of course, so I have not abandoned my art even if I've been quiet in "the world". I've been working on some new abstract paintings based on the ying/yang symbol I'm calling the Personal Tao series. I've made some progress on Carina and have done a few other ad-hoc paintings and crafty-sort of things.  I'm developing some weaving projects and some political works that will take a bit of logistical doing. In general, simply trying to capture all of my fireflies of inspiration in as many mental jars as possible. (They're so pretty!)

Challenge the first:  We relocated, from our cramped-cluttered-cozy-Camberville walk-up to a (relatively) sprawling (still tiny) 1950's suburban tract ranch house. The property - for a number of reasons - seemed destined for us, and I'm more than happy that my beloved has clawed back 22 days worth of not-sitting-in-traffic time as a result of this move.

Settling into a new home always requires more adjustment than I expect, and this transition has been no different. The physical and psychic dust hasn't quite settled yet, but I have a studio set up now (for reals, mostly). Our living space is still not exactly where we want it to be yet - but at least the 80's-hotel-vinyl wallpaper is gone, and our cozy bedroom is our signature deep, beautiful red. Our honey-do list for home improvement and garden/land work keeps rolling on, adding new ones as fast as we're ticking off projects we've done.  At least our garden was healthy enough to go feral, and thanks to targeted irrigation abundant enough to not only feed the wildlife but to give us at least 200 pounds of tomatoes and tomatillos over the course of the season.  (However, I have learned a lot about what to not and not do for next year - Mother Nature is nothing if not a strict schoolmistress.)

Challenge the second: Despite the pleasure I take in gardening and the gradual us-ifying of the house, a shadow has loomed over it all: a creeping, chronic, pain that mostly radiated from my chest and core but attacked my feet and hips and shoulders and left me, at this time last year, literally crying as I tried to get out of bed in the morning.

So after some diagnostic mystery-solving, a sharp and intuitive physical therapist literally changing my life by going on a hunch, and lots and lots of rejiggering my "normal", I'm finally - after a literal year - in a place where I can wrap my head and life around the pain, so that it has diminished enough to let me be *ME* again. 

My pain is largely caused by a chain reaction caused by an odd quirk in my body's structure, which is both boon and bane. It is a gift because it can be largely addressed by things I can do, on my own, with supportive help from experts; it requires no opioid dragon to tame nor does it carry the menace of an immune system turned against me. (Rather, it's the arduous and tedious task of retraining large chunks of my neuromuscular system one block at a time) . It's a curse because there is no "cure", just lifelong awareness and management and an ongoing commitment to practice the physical therapy techniques and exercises that keep me moving and my pain at a tolerable level.

So this past year has been one of, above all, regaining balance. I have felt at once both alienated from and trapped within my body by my pain; both too far outside of and withdrawn into myself to make contact with much of the world comfortable. (That, and 2016 as a whole has been a fustercluck of a year, so that hasn't helped.)

The good news is, I am emerging from this forced hibernation with a renewed sense of purpose.  There really isn't any bad news at the end of that, it really is very good news. (The bad news is I had to go through it at all, I guess?)

I'm in the mid-to-late steps of developing pathography.org, a site dedicated to chronic pain and illness. Patient stories (pathographies) and experiences will be front and center - my own are all I have to start with, but my hope is to gain contributors and a community along the way.  I aim to eventually be a deep resource for those suffering from pain, expanding to help not only primary sufferers but their families, caregivers, and medical teams as well.

It's a big goal and I plan to meet it. For those of you who love my art, do not despair, I will return to it after the New Year. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by and expect much more life around these parts.

By Feel Workshop November 7th & 8th

I'm so excited to be leading these!! I've been talking about this to just about anyone who will listen for, oh, say, the last year and a half and it's FINALLY HAPPENING!!

By Feel: Taking the Visual Out of Visual Art

Zeitgeist Gallery presents an artist-led workshop built to explore a different creative process: silencing your “inner critic” by removing the sense of sight!

Participants will be led through step-by-step instructions to create either a tempura painting or a paperclay sculpture while blindfolded. The goal of the workshop is to foster creativity by heightening awareness of the senses often ignored in the process of creation. The negation of immediate visual feedback allows creation without self-criticism, something that all creators need a break from!

Where: Zeitgeist Gallery, 222 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA

Painting By Feel: Saturday, November 7th, 1 pm to 3 pm   

Sculpting By Feel: Sunday, November 8, 1 pm to 3 pm

Participants: Min 3/ Max 6 each day

To reserve your spot, contact either Zhana Levitsky at Zeitgeist Gallery, 978.219.7172 or zhana@zeitgeistgallery.net , or gabrielle.aydnwylde@gmail.com

Suggested donation per workshop: $20

Meet the Artist, Q & A at the Central Square Library

Mission Accomplished? is currently on display for the month of March at the Central Square Branch of the Cambridge Public Library.

This Thursday, I'll be there from 6pm to 7pm to talk about the work and the process, as well as answer any questions. All are welcome!

Gallery Talk: Threading Culture Into Silk and Sky THIS FRIDAY

GALLERY TALK at Zeitgeist's March Open Studios!

What do needles, thread, and fabric have to do with stars, science, and space exploration? 

Join me Friday, March 20th, at 7pm for Threading Culture Into Silk and Sky: Fiber Arts, Space Exploration, and Their Common Gifts to Humanity.
We'll be looking at the importance of fiber art and astronomy in preserving and advancing culture - weaving history, myth, science, and art into a colorful discussion of the impact and value of human craft and wonder.

Zeitgeist is located at 222 Cabot St in Beverly, MA. The Open Studios begin at 5pm and I'll be starting my talk around the 7pm mark.

This is a trial run, of sorts, for this lecture, as I'll be presenting it again at the Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Art Center in Dowell, MD on March 29 at 1:30 pm. Their artist talk lineup is insane, I'm gobsmacked to be a part of it!

The Making of "Valence"

One of the great things about art and design is being able to take inspiration (and instruction) from pretty much anywhere. But once the flint of the imagination is struck, and the design goes from nebulous to (mostly) concrete, the build begins.

The owner of the salon wanted something similar to this (but not quite as static) and in looking around for things that would be more harmonious with his current, yet evolving, decor I found this.

I took that idea and ran with it as hard as I could. Being a fiber artist, the use of quilting hoops was immensely appealing. Being a science geek, I loved how the lines invoked the atomic symbol in my brain. And being an ambitious little cuss, I thought - why just one shell? How about three sets of hoops to make three nested spheres of movement and loveliness?

I (re-)learned while building this piece (and Code:AVANI) that nothing happens quickly in woodworking. Like most natural materials, wood absolutely will not be rushed - and prep work is absolutely critical. Prepping the surfaces carefully and with attention to detail are pretty much the only things you can do to make wood look amazing - and there are no short cuts.

After oodles (and oodles) (and oodles) of sanding, I needed to stain the three sets of hoops - while the natural wood is pretty, it didn't work well with the client's current and evolving decor.  I experimented with an all-natural, kitchen-chemist steel wool and vinegar stain, originally. But it didn't give the effect I wanted, so I went back to tried-and-true Minwax in English Chestnut (for the outside surface) and Red Chestnut (for the inside). 

The hoops stained, stacked carefully on our table to dry. This is pretty enough on its own to inspire some other pieces brewing in my brain currently.

Once the stain was set, I needed to attach the hoops to the central structure. The fact I was using 3 concentric levels made this problematic when it came to the "clamping" part of the adhesive process. I started with these three hoops on the central stalk, then realized I did NOT have the proper tools for this. Even with extra-long C-clamps, there wasn't enough room for them to be set and supported properly. My salvation was in the Sears hardware section...

This one time, at band clamp...

Once I got the proper tools I was able to put it all together all at once. I think I might do something different next time I make something similar. Balancing was a royal pain, so change #1 will be to enlist another set of hands...

(center strut is unstained at this point b/c the adhesive needs clean surfaces)

Once the glue in the support structure was dry I was able to add in the "interesting", non 90-degree parts of the sculpture. Once all the shells were in, I placed a few nuts and bolts at some strategic joints. I didn't want to secure all junctures because I wanted the ability to shift and move the inner hoops relatively freely.

After that, it was a matter of threading the store-bought socket kit (as opposed to the ones I built for Code:AVANI) and installing it.

Ta-da!

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of this one. These pictures really don't do it justice - I'll fix that soon, I hope.

Fine Art Craft Hilton Head

A week ago today was the opening reception for the Art League of Hilton Head's Fine Art Craft Show.

For the next 3 weeks, Merope and M82 have found lovely spots among some lovely fine art. It is a nicely curated show and I'm really excited to be a part of it.

You can see photos of the exhibit HERE (for a limited time). I'll post my own photos as soon as I've pulled and sorted them from the week's snapshots.

Funny Thing About Fiber - a Peek into Process

So, the interesting thing about fiber is a medium is that despite how floppy it is, it's really not all that flexible.

I've been working on creating a pattern for a triptych of a **fabulous** M-Class solar flare from the 28th of July. It think it's beautiful and lends itself well to a multi-spectrum treatment, and I'm really excited about this work, but it's been - pardon the pun - knotty.

Here's a painful reality I'm dealing with regarding my fiber art: I can't easily mix my own colors like I do my paint. I'm often asked if I dye my own floss, and it seems like eventually I will get to that point, but I am limited by space (and at this moment, expertise). So my palette is limited by the manufacturer's choices in many respects.

There are a few good thread/floss manufacturers out there, and a number of different types of fiber. I usually stitch with DMC or Sullivan, Anchor's usually popular but I found their palette isn't as varied as I need it to be.

For this solar triptych, my desire is to go BIG - it is Sol, after all. And after playing around with the different palettes and manufacturers, I decided that the DMC tapestry wool (instead of my usual cotton) had the richest color range in the reds/oranges/yellows/browns I would be utilizing. I was really excited to start stitching a sunstorm.

The problem is that wool doesn't quite have the luster that cotton does, which is not to say I will never use it, but that it light quality I wanted in this piece is something I'm not sure I can get with wool. So it's back to the drawing board, finding which combination of perle cotton or regular embroidery floss colors can give me the colors I would have had in the wool palette.

This is a fun, if somewhat painstaking process, of experimental color-matching. I've included tweeded colors (two thread colors in the same needle to "mix" the colors when seen by the eye) in every single one of my pieces, it just looks like this particular one is going to have *lots* of them.

Of course, I could always be a little less picky about my colors, but what's the point in that?

On Process at Summer's End

It's rounding into Labor Day weekend here in the States, which is a great tradition (thank you Labor Movement) and the symbolic end of summer no matter what the weather happens to be doing.

This summer has been admittedly mixed. Artistically, it's been pretty solid - a show in July, signing a representation agreement with Zeitgeist Gallery in Beverly, feeling my creativity and flow come back after the exhausting push to finish Merope.

 But the rest of the summer - this last month of it, specifically - has been hard. I've been following the events and related conversations surrounding Ferguson closely, attending a couple of rallies and marches against police brutality but spending most of the month feeling helpless and impotent. It's exactly the sort of feeling that art can help process...except it hasn't, yet.

I have ideas and pieces and bits of work that relate, but my heart is so centered on what's happening right now that I can't get enough distance from it to find a creative handhold. It's the paradox of my creative process - I need a deep emotional connection to the subject I'm working on, but enough emotional space to actually create the work. In the case of "injustice", a universal and still deeply personal concept, I have not yet grasped the specific thread within this web of rage and righteousness that I need to create the work I can feel is aching to be made.

I share this with you, dear visitor, because it's something I sometimes I forget myself: "the process" can be ugly and protracted and meandering but at times it is all necessary to create art that matters.

Cassini’s 10th anniversary!

Happy 10th Birthday, Cassini! Thanks for making things like this possible.

(Phil, the Bad Astronomer over at Slate, put together this great, annotated collection of Greatest Pix of the Cassini probe.)

NEW Art, NEW Show, NEW Directions...

SO. I know I dropped off the face of the planet for a little while after the Kickstarter was launched. Turns out that sometimes when you leap, the net actually will appear.

The trick is seeing it when it's not the shape you expected. =P

Kickstarter for "They Were Here" (my "leap") was not successful, which was disappointing. Though I did receive a few humbling and deeply appreciated supportive comments and contributions.

"The net" was being approached at the beginning of February by Zhana Levitsky of Zeitgeist Gallery in Beverly, MA. She came across this site and fell in love with my tapestries, and after meeting with her I committed to producing at least 2 more pieces for a group show this summer.

I am stupidly, crazily, ambitious sometimes.

So that's where I've been for the past 4+ months - hunkered over cloth, needle and thread and stitching space magic for fun and (hopefully) profit. I have created two new tapestries I am incredibly proud of, learned a lot about myself and my process, and am excited to keep creating in a way I haven't been before.

And now that the show opening has happened, and the pieces have premiered, I can unveil them here on Geeky Pretty Things! I introduce to you, without further ado:

M82, which is special to me because it was inspired by an astrophysicist who helped create the source image.

Merope. I am seriously proud of this piece because, well, it's awesome. And the process of creating it led me to some really crucial creative insights (mostly technique and process related, but it's all important).

And for anyone who wants to see them in person, they are on display until July 27th at the Zeitgeist Gallery, at 222 Cabot Ave, Beverly, MA. Call ahead to ensure access - the gallery hours are a bit sporadic in summer and "viewings by appointment" are encouraged.

I also share the walls with some other phenomenal artists. The exhibit info can be found here:

http://zeitgeistgallery.net/nature%2B%2Bnew-exhibition-june-14-july-27-2014

KICKSTARTER LAUNCHED!! They Were Here: A State-by-State Memorial

Sorry for yelling, guys. This is just really really *really* exciting. I spent weeks tweaking the perks and the campaign and trying to figure out how to sell this project so that people will buy into it. Because it's important.

I mean, I really do believe in the power of this art to move people, and to be one (humble) way of honoring our fallen soldiers who have died in the last ten-plus years of the Global War on Terror.

(I have other ideas and other ways to draw attention to the other costs and casualties of the war, but this one is this one and it's all I can do at the moment...)

It's really exciting to have this opportunity - but holy crap is this scary, too!! I've got 27 days left to raise $85k and I'm really nervous about it.

Here's the link to the whole project - including budget, timeline, vision, etc.  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1255769531/they-were-here-a-state-by-state-memorial

Pledge if you can - and remember, it's all or nothing, so tell anyone else you think might be interested in helping shepherd this art into the world. Link! Like! Reddit/tweet/pin/+ the hell out of it!

And thank you. Sincerely.

"They Were Here" Campaign Rewards/Perks Sorted!

(I'm getting used to the idea of posting the small-ish victories in the large battles to create, so here goes.) 

I've agonized over the perks/rewards for the Kickstarter for They Were Here for the last two weeks. On the surface, that may seem a bit ridiculous. However, it's not like I can just slap some t-shirts or prints up as backer rewards and call it a day.

This is, after all, a memorial project, it's beyond important to not make this ever seem or feel exploitative.

To that end:

One of the perks I'm really quite excited about is offering backers a "experiential" perk: a digital, ongoing and exclusive look at the process of making this work. I know from Mission Accomplished?  that this will be "an experience" worth documenting, and I am looking forward to taking my backers along with me on the journey.

After much more deliberation, I decided to offer postcards and postcard sets of photographs of the maps. These will be oversized, on heavy premium stock and glossy - as quality as I can find. I was initially resistant to the idea until my friends and partner reminded me that I can tell the story of each region or state with such images. Once my blinders dropped I became excited instead of skeptical. I want to do justice to these maps and the subjects - so it's one more aspect of the project I'm excited about.

"Postcards" like these - both signed and unsigned, in full sets of all states or just a handful - are as close to "prints" as I could make them while still keeping the cost of perk fulfillment down (it's already tacking an additional 30% to what I'd otherwise ask for - I don't mind it, but I do need to be mindful of the money).

Finally, I've also decided to offer the originals for sale. I wrestled with this one, but decided that if someone really connected with the art and the concept and really wanted to own one of the pieces after the premiere gallery show, I should let that happen. If this was a publicly commissioned piece it would be different (and I wouldn't be crowdfunding in the first place).

Onward to launch - countdown commences....

Crash Course in Crowdfunding

So... yeah.  I'm still really excited about They Were Here and the prospect of being able to work on it, exclusively and securely, for the next 10 months. I also still think crowdfunding is the way to go on this one.

Yet after a very difficult Friday of learning exactly how many different ways exist for me to fail (like the fact I don't have a Facebook page, I'm not active on Twitter, etc. etc.) I realized I really DO need to tweak my campaign's reward levels, stretch goals, and even the structure of work in general in order to make it possible to do at least *something* - the all-or-nothing funding model makes it hard for an "unknown" like me to hit the sweet spot of asking for too much that I fall short of the goal vs. not enough to really get the project done.

It just seems to be a little more complicated than I first thought it to be. I'd rather wait a little bit longer and implement the tweaks (and I've been brainstorming some great rewards, I think) and launch something people find worth supporting.

I was reminded several times of the awesome XKCD comic found here: 

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/kickstarter.png

Not whingeing here, mind you. Just working within a reality that's making me delay the launch for a few more days until I'm sure it's got the best chance of success that *I* can give it.

"They Were Here"; my newest ambition and largest to date

So my experience at Brickbottom Open Studios was, in a word, encouraging.

Which I needed, since the week leading up to the event I was in a bit of an artistic tailspin. My two large-scale project concepts had been rejected by two different juries and was feeling highly discouraged and uncertain about the feasibility or necessity of the work I'm doing. (Such is the artist's fragile ego at times - believe me, I'm working on it.)

I'm so glad I didn't give up. The public reception to Mission Accomplished? was overwhelming and very very powerful; I spent 12 hours over the course of the weekend answering questions and explaining the work to nearly everyone who passed by.

Some comments were puzzling. For instance, this was a surprisingly common exchange:

Detail, Mission Accomplished?

Viewer: "Are all of these pins places you've been?"

Me: "No, each pin represents a dead solider."

Viewer: ... "Oh."... [looks at map again]... "Oh."

... and it was satisfying to see the transformative power of this work when the reality crashed over them.

I was moved to tears by the reaction of one Iraq veteran's father, whose son "came back, but he didn't come back the same". He thanked me for the work, "for caring". I didn't know what to say, except to express sympathy for his loss and wish him the best.

I was not prepared for so many people to thank me for simply caring enough to do the work. It just took me by surprise - I don't know why it was so surprising, but as a result I did not know what to say, except for "You're welcome." and "I wish it were not necessary".

I was humbled and grateful by the genuine support shown during the weekend. It was a reminder that this work is important, that it DOES have meaning to someone other than me.

I want to use that encouragement to continue the work, and to answer common questions/desires posited by people as they viewed the piece:

1. What about the casualties from other fronts/military operations? Where did they come from?
2. What is the socioeconomic makeup of these various areas? Is there a difference between rich and poor areas of the country?

That weekend of answering questions and watching people react to this piece proved to me that this work is worth doing on much larger and more detailed scale.
 

To that end, I want to create a related piece, called "They Were Here". 

It's much larger in scope and detail, but in a nutshell:

• Each state individually mapped, at least 1 x 2 feet in size
• All 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the Pacific Territories, mapped at the same scale for accuracy.
• County-level socioeconomic information (from the US Census) detailing median household income
• Representing all fatal American military casualties from all three Global War On Terror fronts: 
  • Operation Iraqi Freedom
  • Operation Enduring Freedom
  • Operation New Dawn
• Opening day for this show:  Friday, November 7th,2014;  the weekend before Veteran's Day. Show will run until the end of December, possibly longer.

This is a MASSIVE undertaking and I am stoked to begin. I am launching a Kickstarter campaign very soon to drum up support for this. This was a brainchild conceived by community support and encouragement; hopefully it will be birthed that way as well.

If funded, this WILL be my 2014.  Full stop. This project requires I work on this (and only this) pretty much non-stop between the end of the funding campaign (January 31st) and the end of the year when I close the show. It is a great labor of love and respect and I would be so honored for the chance to complete it.

Open Studios featured on Somerville Neighborhood News!

So, I had the delightful opportunity to be hosted as an Affiliated Artist at the Brickbottom Open Studios last month. I was quasi-ambushed by a man with a microphone, Mr. Balonon-Rosen came and asked me questions about Mission Accomplished? and the Open Studios in general.

Tthe Somerville Neighborhood News segment just came out recently on SCATV,  and the relevant excerpt can be found here on YouTube:

Yay for local access television! =)

SCATV can be perused at your leisure over here:  http://www.scatvsomerville.org/snn/

New Pieces In Progress

Lately I've been wrapping my head around a lot of MATH.

I will admit it's not my strong suit but fortunately I've got a strong logical streak as back up; so between my dim recollection of geometry (and fractional and exponential math) and the vague intuition of "well, crap, that doesn't look right" I've been able to muddle my way through it.  I wish I had a TARDIS so I could kick whoever told me that artists don't need math right in the shins. Just once. That'd be enough.

ANYWAY, so the reason for all of this is because I need the data and the math to help me be accurate in my next two pieces.  They are both politically charged in nature without being overtly so, and I need to get shit right.

One, called "Make It Rain", will be a combination of crystal and glass beads and bullets suspended from a stand-alone frame that viewers will walk through. It sounds really simplistic at the moment but I assure you there's more to it. The few tests I'd done of it have me really excited to go full-bore on it. I should mention it's 8 ft tall and 10-12 feet long (sigh. I still need to do that math) and 42" wide so that folk who use wheelchairs will be able to enjoy the work, too. I should also mention I have no idea where I'm going to show it but it's still important for me to build it, as it will touch directly onto the national dialog surrounding gun violence.

The second piece, called "Relative Attention" is an examination of the relationship between the death tolls of various groups, starting at 9/11 victims, then US military deaths, then US military non-fatal casualties, then the estimated (because there are no concrete numbers) death and casualty count of Iraq, Afghan and Pakistani civilians. This one has been a heavy one to research, and a heavy one to conceptualize. While the relative scales are remaining fixed, the overall scale is malleable given the materials I'm working with - it's almost too much design choice without constraints, so I am actually a little glad to have a 72", 100lb size restraint to submit it to one show I've got my eye on.  The great thing about this one is that it's changeable, and I can revamp it and alter the way it's presented based on the space I'm given, so that's exciting, too.

These large-scale pieces can be intimidating, but I just need to remember it's like eating an elephant: One bite at a time.

Watch this space for updates and more details about these works, and let me know if there's any specific questions you may have about them.

You Are Here: Maps and Art at NAVE Gallery in Somerville, MA

I've been buried in this project since the middle of June, and I'm happy to say if you live in the Boston area you can see it at the Nave Gallery until August 18. (Gallery hours are limited, though: 1-5 Saturday and Sunday). 

The exhibit is remarkably strong and I'm honored and humbled to be part of such a great show.  The show info is here: http://navegallery.org/wp/you-are-here-maps-and-art-2/

In front of the piece at the show. GIven the subject, I shouldn't be grinning that hard. But I am proud of it. 

The statement for MY piece, "Mission Accomplished?" is as follows:

Close up of Mission Accomplished? 

On March 20, 2003, the United States led an international military coalition into Iraq. Forty-two days later, on May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush gave a speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare a victorious end to the major combat operations of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Behind the President hung a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”.  More than seven years later, President Barack Obama declared an “official” end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, though thousands of soldiers remain in Iraq as part of a differently-named military operation.

A pin has been placed in this map in the Department of Defense's “Hometown of Record”  for each American solider who was killed during the entire seven year, three month duration of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

White pins represent the 140 soldiers who died during “the war”, the forty-two days between March 20 and May 1, 2003.

The yellow pins stand for the 4,269 soldiers who died in the seven-plus years following the Bush Administration's announcement of the end of the Battle of Iraq - between May 2, 2003 and the final Operation Iraqi Freedom military death recorded by the DoD on August 22, 2010.

The data was sourced directly from the Department of Defense casualty lists, available through https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/ The soldiers represented here are only those listed as serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, exclusive of all other named combat operations in Iraq or elsewhere.

This map does not show any of the non-fatal casualties, any casualties incurred by private mercenary corporations, nor any of the civilians who died in this conflict.

The frame's headlines, articles, and letters detailing the national discourse surrounding US involvement in Iraq are from the New York Times, between October 1, 2002 and June 2, 2003.

Painting to be Exhibited March 17-29

"Before\After: Experience, Perception, Context" was created for the "21 Days of Questions/365 Days of Action" events of 2013, a series of domestic violence awareness events across Boston and Cambridge, organized and curated by Hope Riccardi and Violence Transformed.

I am extremely excited to be included in this exhibit, and incredibly ​proud of the artwork itself. An exploration of the effects and experience of violence (and trauma), I have never had a piece be so insistent on its own creation. So far, it resonates with each viewer in a slightly different way, which pleases me. What will it say to you?

​ The exhibit will hang from March 17 through March 29 at the Cambridge College gallery located at 1000 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge.

Artist's reception and performance art will be from 4-8 pm on Saturday, March 23, 2013

​More information about the exhibit and Violence Transformed can be found on the organization's website, here:  http://www.violencetransformed.com/