Artist Catalogue

Virtual Exhibition

Scarred Memory.   Forgotten Blood.

My skin is bruised, and bleeding, and my memories are scattered and blurry - they are my porcelain shards.

Their edges are frayed. They are not neatly folded up. They are jagged and crumpled, confused and disjointed. I am collaging my body and memories so that they can hold the same space, for the two do not have to live as separately as I have experienced them.

My skin and porcelain are scar tissue. It is made up of bumps and scabs, holes and hair, wrinkles and rash. Covered in eczema, I pick at my skin until it bleeds, ripping the scabs off, letting the blood leak out and seep onto my clothing. So sensitive a tiny bump or scratch leaves my skin (this clay, my body), inflamed and burning. The splattering scars, red and purple, lie on my arms. They cover most of my hands and my chest. Raw and bruised, there are scabs on my body that have been there for weeks.

My body is a book of skin memories, and my clay calls to it.

Glaze leaks onto porcelain sheets; it spills and stains. I let the glaze run as I would let the blood run down my arm. I pierce the clay and try to mould it back together. I apply slip like a plaster. The clay bleeds red; it stains blue, shifts to green as if a bruise is fading, but the blisters and scabs remain scattered on its surface.

The clay is forced to remember,

I am trying to catch up.

Fragile porcelain memories are scattered and crumbled, collapsed and shattered along a jagged and seemingly endless timeline - one that primarily exists from photo albums and from sitting quietly, listening to my family reminiscing.

“Working with trauma is as much about remembering how we

survived as it is about what is broken.” (Van Der Kolk, 2014, p.255)

I live, to a certain extent, in a state of impenetrable blindness - closing the kiln door, lying on a mat and trembling. I have no idea what memory will come to the surface, what broken clay will come out the kiln. I lay the blanket on the printing press and start rolling the handle, the temperature climbs in the kiln, and my tremors become stronger. I am committing blind acts, relying on my body and muscle memory to make it through.

Surrendering to the process,

 and praying for memories.