Some truths about me, my past and my subject matter in art.

I started admiring creativity when I was quite young-- I would watch my sister as she colored in the pages of her Garfield and Disney's Hurcules coloring books. I would watch her write her name is "bubble letters" and begged her to teach me how-- I practiced constantly. I got really good at it and had the best looking notes to pass to my friends in class. Initially, I think everyone is drawn to neatness and decoration in their art making-- trying to do it just as well as someone else-- but not necessarily their own way. Taking art classes in middle school you learn little clay projects, how to map out a drawing-- of which the teacher does most of the mapping. One project in particular that I obsessed over was a paper mache project of our own subject matter and I chose the little yellow dog from the Word Processor program-- he sits in the corner waiting for you to need help and always gives suggestions on how to do things differently. I googled his image and got him from all angles and printed out the images. I brought the images to class and rendered him as precisely as possible for a seventh grade kid. His initial yellow body was changed to chocolate brown with a black spot on the back-- who knows why. I played softball for 13 years. I was a pitcher. I practiced nearly every day of my life-- millions of pitches, countless tournaments, tryouts, let downs, practices, seas of tears. I've lost precious childhood freedom being trapped in what was to become my entire life's work. I lost the skin on my fingertips so many times that we started buying what was called "new skin" for my fingertips-- but tape worked best. I developed tendonitis in my right arm and spent every day for over a year with my arm shoulder deep into an ice bath for an hour. All night was hot and cold packs. I have woken up many mornings not being able to move because I pitched for over twelve hours that day. Now, my knees are shot and I'm not an athlete anymore and just like any ex-athlete have put on the pounds-- but there is something I'm getting at-- I remember my last year of my softball career-- I noticed something was very, very wrong. When you are an athlete you learn to let things go-- physical ailments-- you start to think, "Eh, that pain is in my head-- brush it off to the wayside-- you can get over this." This thinking went on for years, naturally. I got really god at denying things. In 2006 my softball career was over and I wanted to go to school for art-- I also wanted to go home. So, here enters Lamar University. I wanted, initially, to be a graphic designer and work for a company so I could make stupid T-shirts. That idea was half-baked and lasted a few months until actual art classes flooded my brain. I wanted to be taken seriously and make really good art-- I was being competitive, of course. A few years go by and I was still taking all basic classes until my first studio class-- outside of drawing and painting-- was ceramics. We started very basically. Pinch pots-- day one. We hadn't even learned to properly kneed the clay yet. But once we did it was all over-- I thought to myself, "I want to touch this material for the rest of my life." Clay is the most basic material and the building block of all societies. It's so pure and basic that I think the thought of that alone made me fall in love. It withstands so much stress and comes out stronger than before-- it would take aeons to break back down again. It does exactly what you want it to do-- everything else is timing and alchemy-- magic, seemingly enough. Fall of 2008 was the semester my life changed. The summer before, the guy I loved moved to New Zealand to "find himself." I told him to go, that he needed it because everyone needs time alone to learn who they are and everyone should travel and get lost. I thought he would come back to be with me-- but he didn't. A few months later, a truth I had been denying for years and years was rearing it's ugly little head (metaphorically). My belly had gotten quite engorged. My mom thought there was something very wrong-- surely she thought I was trying to hide a pregnancy-- so I went to the OBGYN a few days later. I hadn't seen her in about 2 years-- I even knew something was wrong then. She felt my stomach and noticed how hard it was. She asked if I was pregnant and I said no, but she ran a pregnancy test to be sure. Negative. My heart racing, I asked what in the world was going on. She told me I had a very large mass in my abdomen and we needed to find out right away what it was. She called the hospital and had me squeezed in to get a CT scan of my abdomen and some blood work. She asked me if I wanted to call anyone and I asked if she could call my mom for me and explain what was going on. I was in shock. Tears were streaming down my face and I don't know why but I just remember feeling like I was in the principal's office in middle school and was about to get into some deep shit. Well, I guess I was in deep shit-- the deepest I'd ever been in before. It's amazing what denial can do, isn't it? I was in so much pain leading up to this point. I could barely stand up straight, my lower back was a mess, and it felt like the tightest rubber band you could find was stretched from my belly button to my urethra (crazy, I know). I thought was "holding stress" in my belly. I started attempting to do yoga and flood my body with water to alleviate some of the pain. Nothing helped. It was day in and day out of pain and denial-- until truth slapped me in the face. You can only pretend for so long-- and I felt like a liar and a fake about my body and my art for a while. A few days later the CT scan revealed what was to later be explained to me as a "Borderline Serous Tumor" in my left ovary. Surgery was scheduled ten days after I found out that something was wrong. November 4th- 14th were the scariest days of my life. I called the people I wanted to know and have retold this story more times than I can count. I remember everything. Every last detail-- it's strewn throughout my art. The worst thing that has ever happened to me is the reason I'm still here-- the memories, the fear, the scar, the body issues that just keep happening. No one tells you how your life will be when you lose an essential part of your feminine-ness. I don't know how to describe it. For a twenty one year old to go through so much and as a twenty four year old, now, still going through the remnants of the aftermath and still dealing day in and day out of how my body and chemical makeup has changed is indescribable. This is what I have decided to make art about. Art should be personal. We all have a story. Life is hard and no one prepares you for it. The first day I got back to school from recovery I started making something in ceramics. I worked with little pieces of clay because working with anything larger than the size of my fist made me clench my abdomen and was too much. I finished the piece in a few hours. The following weeks it had it's appropriate dry-time, it was bisque fired, glazed and was fired again. About two months later I got an e-mail from my surgeon of an image of the tumor itself, and it's weight-- upon my request before surgery. The images and the sculpture were quite similar in size and the way that the parts were broken up into different sections. I felt it was meant to be-- a work made from my subconscious or unconscious revealed a subject matter all my own and of which I would continue to explore because of such deep rooted connections. Finally, something to relate to and make art about! The attempt is to be as brutally honest as possible, even if it's embarrassing for me or hard to look at for the viewer. Since the first tumor sculpture I've done in ceramics, I have used steel, found objects, collage, words, drawings, paintings, and prints in my art. [Sorry about the look of this post-- technical difficulties.]

i feel your bleeding heart.

I read your words and I see the pictures you find interesting and we agree so much on how to live a compassionate life. I am burdened by the fact that I have done so much silent damage to anything that might be a friendship without absolute ashamedness. You are kind, and you are special, and you don't know anything that has been done to you and you don't need to. You have been deceived and I will not say a word because I respect everything you are and you are so happy-- or at least on that road.