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Pandemic.
I had been sculpting the hearts for months, but this one was conceived in real time while my studio was in mandatory closure for three months. At the time, I had an apprentice from Germany living with me in my single bedroom flat whom I’d met six months earlier in Berlin through friends. We hit it off and he asked me to share in my process in tattoo and art. He came to stay with me in the US one month before lockdown, and as you might imagine, everything changed in an instant upon his arrival. No one had any idea what was coming. I don’t share in my process with anyone due to how crazy it gets, but he asked for my tutelage through mere witness and he got it. I didn’t feel comfortable around him here because I felt his judgement and dominance in a space I’m so wide open and vulnerable while he was so very closed off. I made the bulk of these hearts huddling in a tiny corner like a savage pirate then. This guy was neither friendly nor open-hearted. I misjudged him in taking on this challenge, but that was part of the experience and I just couldn’t keep myself from making. I kept to myself, obsessively working all hours everyday during lockdown. It was a prized period of constant flow amidst the weird strife of energies in my little home. I think I knew I needed to see it through despite it, and he’d contributed to the cause of lessons learned opening my heart up to hopeful situations. It was a crash course, as if I needed another, in matters of the heart. This piece marked a major turning point. He became abusive and I took it, giving him free reign to be himself while I spun wildly out of control in my process. Ultimately he became violent and had to leave. While the world was in chaos, my heart sank in anguish. Once he was gone, I pulled myself together and found my own company worth loving once more. I decided then to never open my process again for those unwilling to be just as vulnerable as I am in it to see it through.
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Handmade sacred heart of clay, wood, plaster, 100 year old macerated squirrel skull, hand picked dried weed whips, acrylic paint, chiffon, handmade frame.
2020
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