incognito 2013

Incognito was on Saturday, May 11, at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Now that it is over, I can post the pieces I donated:

second skin
10" x 8"
leather sewn on burlap mounted on illustration board

Second Skin is sort of a "sketch" of Genuine and Bonded, which uses cut up leather belts to reference personal childhood memories. I'd prefer to shy away from over-explaining, but I'm sure (unfortunately) that many others have had close encounters with belts in their formative years. 

The striking (no pun intended) contrast between the different textures and colors serves to draw attention to the material, while the choice of material, arrangement and shape of the pieces is meant to suggest a something more aggressive and sinister.

a piece of heaven
10" x 8"
corrugated cardboard on illustration board

A Piece of Heaven draws back to another memory. In middle school, I found a bird that had fallen from a tree. I put it in a cardboard box and planned to nurse it back to health (or at least keep it safe) in our screened-in patio. After its life was threatened, not by cats or weather, but by a human presence, I was forced to find the safest possible spot I could think of for the box. I hid it downhill near a bridge that went over the canal near my bus stop. When I got back from school, I ran to see how the bird had fared and found only feathers scattered about.

Both of these "sketches" touch on a child learning cruelty not only from the outer world, but also from inside the home. I think of our capacity to reach out or to hold back, depending on the situation, and how those choices change us and define our character.