DEAR ANDREW
PROCESS DURATION: 8 MONTHS LACQUER/CLAY LAYERS: 79 LAYERS PEARL TYPE: NATURAL ABALONE & PAUA ABALONE SIZE: 8” X 7” X 8”
DEAR ANDREW is a letter to my late great-grandfather, Andrew Williams, who was a Maryland sharecropper. It is the defining start to my AfroKorean Lacquerware Collection as it embodies a symbiosis of culture, tradition and technology. The base is 3D modeled and painstakingly wrapped in layer after layer of lacquer and pearl to create a sculpture reflecting the memories of a man who lived and agrarian life filled with structure, love and hard work.
SHEEN is affectionately the second iteration of my first practice piece. It is about being tender-headed, about cozy mornings where the scent of grease wrapped around my Father’s fingertips as he imbued his love directly into my scalp. It was kneaded into my thoughts and I wore it with me until the sweat from my playground antics frazzled a halo around my head. But when that happened, he would call me to sit back down (often more than once), and this ritual of love would begin again, winding itself through every curl on my head.
PROCESS DURATION: 5½ MONTHS LACQUER/CLAY LAYERS: 61 LAYERS PEARL TYPE: NATURAL ABALONE & PAUA ABALONE SIZE: 6” X 6” X 1”
SHEEN
RULER 7” is a part of my continued introspection on how Lacquerware has evolved from a purely utilitarian craft to one that represents the opulence of luxury. I delineate luxury as part convenience, part comfort with those aspects often occurring as an interchangeable feedback loop. I realized one day that I own a lot of rulers, different types for different functions but always at hand when I need them. They are so pervasive in my life, it is almost as if they aren’t there at all yet when I can’t find the one I’m looking for, I overturn everything to get it. Luxury often presents in society as a linear set of goods, services or access but I think it’s possible that without its association with exclusivity, it may also reside in the everyday objects that simply speak to us personally.
PROCESS DURATION: 5 MONTHS LACQUER/CLAY LAYERS: 54 LAYERS PEARL TYPE: NATURAL ABALONE & PAUA ABALONE SIZE: 7¾” X 1½” X ¼”
RULER 7”
