Living in an economy based on extraction and disposability, so much of what we depend on to exist is out of the realm of our own control. As the news becomes increasingly bleak and we turn to our devices for comfort and distraction, Gather, a collaborative installation by artists Chenda Cope and Avery Forbes, proposes instead that we turn to each other for genuine healing. We gather to make whole what has been broken, finding agency and community through acts of repair.
Gather transforms the gallery space into a workshop with tables, tools and other resources. Objects fixed and repurposed in the workshop are displayed in the gallery next door, enjoying a brief moment of elevated status, next door until the closing, when they are redistributed to the community. The repaired pieces, back in use, continue the on-going project of art and healing.
In the second iteration of Gather, we reshuffled and resorted the materials left over from the first iteration, offering up the materials for viewers to become active participants, to take some things home right here and now and do their own making. Gather saves things from the trash, making something from the pieces often deemed disposable.
Bubble Girl explores the idea of insulation in a variety of ways. It asks the viewer to examine the protections they are building in their own lives, and illustrates the ways in which those barriers can inhibit effective communication. Bubble Girl seems happy and carefree, but in reality she is isolated and uncomfortable in the world she has formed around herself.
Bubble Girl has been performed three times. Once in December 2018 across the UMass, Amherst campus. Again in later December through the streets of downtown Amherst, and finally in April 2020 through a then empty campus.
The completely remade version of the suit now exists as a sculptural object that is displayed alongside the documentation of the performances. The remade suit is attached to an air pump on a timer switch so it can slowly deflate and quickly inflate as if gasping.
This piece was created in response to the Kavanaugh hearings. It consists of a motor, a gear reduction system, and a light sensing system. It is installed with a bright spotlight that causes the motor to spin one way, curling up the flag with the "Yup" side out. When the viewer steps in front of the piece and blocks the light the motor reverses directions, unfurling the flag and revealing the "Nope." The flag only ever says "Nope," but in the light we have hope that the message may be something else. It is only in the darkness that its true nature is revealed.
2017
Copper plate etchings, pen, and embossing on paper
13" x 5" and 11" x 14"
For this series of prints I etched images of 45's face over and over again on the same copper plate, making two prints after each etching to document the process. I continued to etch until faces were no longer distinguishable and only dark black scribbles were left. The prints are meant to be viewed as a unit and they stand as a record of a process.
For the final phase of the work I left the etched plate in a bed of acid for several days and made prints and embossings with the destroyed plate.
2017
Copper plate etching an aquatint on paper
11" x 14"
I have been thinking a lot about femininity and the many different identities we try on as women. This print came out of a conversation with a friend who had just given birth. When I asked what motherhood was like, she looked me in the eye and said, "I would kill to protect this baby." Using Bouguereau's 'Innocence' as a reference, I created a Madonna figure with an automatic weapon instead of a lamb on her arm.
On top of my original Madonna figure I etched modern-day Madonna. My reference image was a photograph of her giving her fiery speech at the women's march wearing her pussy hat. This Madonna is militant too, but for different reasons. I wanted both Madonnas to interact on the same plate because both are women who have dealt with idolization and have been attacked by many different names throughout their lifetimes.
2017
Copper plate etching and aquatint on paper
11” x 14” and 7" x 11"
This is a continuation on my meditations on femininity. I went through all of my old selfies that I had taken and sent to the men I dated to find the two that embarrassed me the most, then I created an aquatint of one and etched the other on top of it. The two selfies show sides of myself that I no longer embrace, and are meant to illustrate the ways in which women still go out of their way to accommodate the men around them. These prints serve as a reminder to stay true to yourself before your own identity gets lost in a sea of others.
2017
Muslin, grommets, wire, ribbon, photolithographic prints on vellum
14" x 25" x 15"
Single channel video
2:43
Cilice is both a sculpture and a performance piece. To create the sculpture I first created over 90 photolithographic prints on vellum, each with slight tonal differences. To hold the prints I sewed a simple muslin dress that opens in the back. Each grommet was hammered in place and the metal links were wound and cut by hand. In the interior of the dress I stitched intersecting layers of wire 'boning' so the dress would retain my shape after it was taken off. The performance is about trying on an identity, feeling the burden of it, and seeking to remove it. The dress left where it is shed in the performance is a sculpture that is simultaneously a straitjacket, a corset and a shell discarded after metamorphosis.
2017
Single channel video
3D printed PLA, laser cut acrylic, paint, hardware, motor, switch, wires
Tweets, Instagram posts, hashtags
0:55
Device design adapted from JON-A-TRON http://www.instructables.com/id/Split-Flap-Display/
I built this device to be patient zero for a virus. I am working on a simpler analog design that may be easier to spread. The machine is simply a means for generating the real work: the tweets. Tap the button as many times as you want to generate a series of words. Write them down. Post them. Spread the virus. Defeat ignorance with nonsense.
Spread the virus. Defeat ignorance with nonsense.
2016
Plaster life casts, alginate, my grandmother's headstone
Installations in Fairfield, CT shown
Dimensions variable
The process of casting my face for this project was like a small death. I put my trust in a friend for the process, and the moments I spent in darkness and silence waiting for the material to cure were torturous. I held on my face an almost comical expression of peace despite the panic and exhaustion I was feeling. I then took the alginate mold home and cast plaster faces into as the mold cracked and distorted, experimenting with different plaster ratios as well. I kept going until the mold was unusable. I then took those casts and placed them on my grandmother's headstone and a river near my parent's house. They will remain there until they decompose.
Puppies 4 Sale
2017
Single channel video
3:08
After listening to so much posturing and yapping on the news I got an idea. I went to a pet store and bought some bulk puppy toys. Then I removed the fur, disassembled them, painted them beige, and put them back together. The reassembled creatures seem almost cute, but when you turn them all on at once the noise becomes horrible and oppressive, and when viewed from above the squirming of the puppies is like maggots. The projected video synchs up with a performance that is meant to disorient viewers and lead them to question the reality of the screen.
2016
Photolithographic prints on paper
15.75" x 20” or 31.5" x 20"
As the 2016 presidential election approached I felt deeply aware of and disgusted by my privilege. I saw faces that looked like me and my friends in crowds everywhere cheering for a monster. This image came out of that anxiety and self-loathing. The colors, the layering and the application of ink are all calculated to communicate stress.
2016
Single channel video composed of lithographic prints on vellum
00:00:11
We have constructed a Babel filled with screams into the twitterverse that no one listens to or understands. Soon the tower will fall and all that will be left will be the dodos.
