Artist Statement: My recent work has explored levels of memory and how we classify and organize them. As humans we have the special and unique ability to recall and preserve, sometimes with great detail, complex memories. These may be classified as geological (the earth from where we are realized and the clay medium), biological ( DNA), ethnic, cultural, familial, and personal. I refer to this organization as “taxonomy of memory”: a method of naming and classifying memory and its constructs.
I think of memory as layered, with each layer imparting bits of information to our consciousness at different times and then fading away; some memories float to the surface of our awareness whole and unedited, and some are imparted in brief flashes or appear as discreet thoughts, words, or feelings and seem to arise from a deeper locus.
The first layer of these memories is the clay material, which imparts its own geological memory. The forms provide the location of the memory, the organization of the imagery relates more of the story, and the surfaces give even more information about age and time, until the story or memory is realized. I do this with the understanding that the stories/memories may be read or interpreted differently based on the cultural background and personal history of the viewer.