Karen & Related Motherhood Projects

Installation/ Sculpture/ Video/ Photographs/ Book Chapter
University Park, PA 2008,  Ashgate 2012

Reconciling Art and Mothering

Still from making a baby, 2007.

I recently wrote a book chapter called, In Search of Mother, that is part of a larger anthology entitled Reconciling Art and Mothering edited by Rachel Epp Buller.  The proposed year of publication is 2012.  My essay, In Search of Mother, is about the work I began in 2007 centered around mothering a fictional box baby named Karen.  

Here is an excerpt:
"...The day I found her, I came across a long shipping box teetering off the side of a recycling bin.  Instinctively, I responded by hurrying to prevent this box from falling to the ground.  I found humor in this gesture almost immediately.  Personifying my interaction with this non-living object was immediately associated in my mind with the natural reaction one might have to save an actual living baby from falling.  I was aware of my strange interpretation, and it took hold as I wondered how I could further manifest this personification. 
     My own willingness to suspend disbelief and turn fantasy into reality, the same experience that I would later require of my audience, led me to begin at the beginning.  I documented this birthing event in my video, making a baby...." 

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Photos and Stills

Screenings and Exhibitions: 

* 2008 Dilated.  Zoller Gallery.  University Park, PA. (solo).
The Golden Calf. Curated by Lonnie Graham.   Catalogue.  Crane Arts.  Philadelphia, PA
   
* 2007 Raw Summer Lovin'. Zoller Gallery.  University Park, PA.
NASAD Show.  Screening at Pennsylvania State University.

     making a baby, 3 minutes 42 seconds looping, 2007.

    MOTHER, 8 minutes 16 seconds looping, 2007.

    1 + 1 = 3, 39 seconds looping, 2008.

After Mommie Dearest, 2 minutes 34 seconds looping, 2008.