traces 1, monotype,collagraph, screen print, great grandma sonia’s fabric scraps, desert branches, rope, paper tape, wood, treasures, cherry wood, nails, cassette tapes, wire, pigment from death valley, palm tree bark, titus canyon rock, milagros, 2015

traces 2, monotype, collagraph, chine colle, wrapped packages, 2015

I am interested in what we hold, what we hide, what we expose, what is wrapped away. What remains hidden, what cannot be told and what is the whole story. Vessels that hold memory; a box, a body, a heart. How we are wrapped, held, pierced, marked, stamped. With paper, cord, wire, rope, twine, string and fabric. The cords that bind us to a history of slavery and free us to carry on our family legacies. The knotting, twisting and braiding, the imprints, pegs, chains, bottles and mirrors. The power of what is inside and what we carry; homes, communities, people, histories. The bento box holding food that sustains, the pake congo whose knotted raffia holds resistance and the minkisi that holds healing. The mark as imprinted record keeper, diasporic memory holder to Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas. The blueprint of life and lives, stamped with indigo and ink. The blue of my grandfather’s pens. The weight of a life, the cherished and treasured.