Statement/Bio
We are part of a whole, part of the all. We affect everyone and everything, while everyone and everything affects us, no matter how small or fleeting the impact. I set out to tangibly convey this interconnection through temporary, interactive installation art. Each large-in-scope work includes instructions, participants using this guidance to influence, alter, maintain, progress, and distinguish.
My works physically exist as art only while installed and activated by audience. Participants literally complete my imagery, invited to perpetuate and resolve my installations in specific ways. Without this audience, my installations are static and unfinished.
For each installation, I have a desired vision, progression, and result which I initiate through repetitive process and take steps to control. But, by relinquishing my concept to audience—who may likewise be asked to complete a repetitive action—my work sometimes proceeds in ways I could never anticipate.
From 1998 to 2016, I completed an 18-year commitment to interactive installation, 9 solo-biennial exhibits of large-in-scope, participatory works in 9 vast mill spaces throughout the state of Maine. In the end, I mounted 81 installations in 8 Maine towns while cleaning by hand each historic space (averaging 25,000 square feet). Each solo biennial was a 22-month process exploring a different theme, inviting audience to perpetuate and resolve each exhibit's 9 unique works.
Meanwhile, over the course of the 18 years, I worked proactively toward healing from a childhood of severe trauma (loss and abandonment plus sexual, physical, emotional abuse)—through counseling, body work, then extensive Eye-Movement Desensitization Therapy (EMDR)—all to try to manage my C-PTSD and intermittent clinical depression.
In February 2017—I was in my studio again, coming to new interactive installation ideas, also getting used to this new way of working—without and over-arching, long-term plan. I was happy, feeling content with what I had achieved thus far both professionally and personally.
After 5 weeks of new work and adjusting to a less-intense life—on March 8—something was suddenly and severely wrong. A larger part of my mind became determined to take my life, to end all I had worked toward, to end my time with my beloved husband and family, to end myself and the chance to continue to make my work.
I would soon be diagnosed with a "suicidal psychosis," hospitalized twice in separate psychiatric wards. Twenty-four hours a day my brain shows me suicidal images, unless I’m distracted, moving pictures of me ending my life, over and over. The images are not something I can control, nor something I want to have happen. I call these suicidal images “the imposter” because they feel like an alien which has taken over part of my brain.
For the last several months I have been bedbound, my brain becoming more and more fatigued or affected, the imposter's horrific images now accompanied by a more and more frequent and intense involuntary movement of my body. Doctors haven't determined the cause nor a treatment.
Some days, I manage to do 20 minutes to an hour of writing or conceptualizing before my brain turns back to the frustrating images. As a way to cope and to help others, I have been blogging candidly about my illness (www.theartistplan.com). I receive lots help and encouragement from my community, just as I did with my 18-year project. I am confident that even if this disability continues to keep me from doing my work myself, I will eventually begin to start moving forward again with the help of art student assistants, interns, and volunteers.
Disability
psychosis, depression, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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Memoir
2016
99 desks, stools, books, pencils, 9 sharpeners, acrylic
22.25" x 288" x 2400"
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Labyrinth IX
2016
54 medium-density board squares, acrylic
1" x 120" x 1728"
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Undoing II
2016
pedestal, graphite, 9 erasers, hand broom, glass
648" x 24" x 18"
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Undoing II
2016
pedestal, graphite, 9 erasers, hand broom, glass
648" x 24" x 18"
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Shift III
2014
pedestals, non-drying clay, wood tools
57" x 12" x 288"
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Aggregate
2014
dirt, tin, ledger, pedestal, platform, pencil, tools
14" x 170" x 1752"
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Sort V
2014
2700 wood cubes, shelves, acrylic, ink
96 x 48"x 384"
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Inversion II
2014
1520 spruce posts, acrylic, oil paint
47.5" x 156" x 156"
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