Mixed Media and Installation Artist
If you live downtown Jersey City and see a lonely shopping car lingering about, please snap and txt/DM a photo and cross streets to me.
Special Thank you Corrine. She recovered this shopping cart accumulating garbage, power-washed it in the rain and stored it in her garage for pick up.
One brisk walk through download JC and this cart has completed the first leg of it’s transformation journey…
Racial Gaslighting, hides in plain sight in everyday interactions. It subtly shifts dialog from a racist topic at hand onto the accuser – forcing them to question and re-assess their own response to racism, rather than the racism itself.
“You’re being overly dramatic.”
“Are you sure it was about race?”
“I’m sure he/she didn’t mean it like that.”
Intentional or not, these types of comments trigger a spiral of self-doubt and create a convenient way to avoid uncomfortable conversations about race.
The constant questioning, twisting and undermining of what I know to be true – has had a compound negative affect upon me, manifesting in insomnia, anxiety and hefty amounts of emotional baggage. Through these works, I am exercising these demons.
This exhibition explores implicit biases facing BIPOC communities and the aesthetic armor for protection I have created to shield myself.
The show will be on view in MoCADA’s virtual exhibition hall from May 3, 2021 to July 5, 2021. Viewing link to follow. Sneak peak below…
Microaggressions are defined as subtle, intentional — and oftentimes unintentional — everyday interactions or behaviors that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial messages or assumptions toward historically marginalized groups.
The difference between microaggressions and overt discrimination, is that people who commit microaggressions are often unaware they are doing these things – and if you point it out to them, they say, “That wasn’t my intention, you are being too sensitive.” Which is yet another microaggression.
I often have the experience of people touching my hair without asking first, which makes me feel like a merchandise on display. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I’ve been complimented for being “articulate.” Which presumes that black people are not usually capable of competent intellectual conversation.
The weight of these daily interactions underpins very real consequences… stress, anger, frustration, self-doubt and ultimately feelings of powerlessness and invisibility.
Created using a combination of free form weaving, knotting and wrapping techniques, I have frozen these moments with, zip ties, ribbon, yarn, paracord, cotton rope, beading and recycled fishing nets to create protective armor.
Over Christmas break I left all the baggage 🧳 of 2020 behind in this cart to clear my way forward in 2021. And then other carts showed up so clearly, I have more baggage to excoriate.
Made progress on this angle of the Shopping Cart.
Flipping the cart over to see what I see and tackle the other POV.
There was no undercarriage on my cart so, I’m weaving one to hold more baggage…
I had pulled a particular rope to weave on the cart, but then the cart had other plans when I found this Caution tape in my yarn stash…
The shopping carts congregating at the back of the construction site across the street have been calling to me…
Rose Gold and Bronze Spray Paint
If you have never taken the time to admire the form and structure of shopping carts and fishing nets. I’ve put a few images together for you…
See?
