I’ll meet you on the other side.
“I personally didn’t know where I was going with these pieces, only that they needed to be made. It has been a joy meeting them here on the other side of consciousness.”
I’m thrilled to announce that my first solo art show, “I’ll meet you on the other side,” is opening at Cool Water Dry Goods on Friday, October 10th! The lovely owners at CWDG have created a stunning space for vintage clothing and goods, and with their recent expansion, a new gallery space! I’ll be showing a series of automatic drawings I created back in 2023. Each drawing will be displayed in a custom frame, designed and fabricated by Andrew, which is a super special addition to the show. It has been a dream of mine and Andrew's to collaborate again, and this provided a perfect opportunity. Each frame is handcrafted from wood repurposed from horse stalls removed during our barn renovation.
These drawings came about during a particularly vulnerable time for me. I talked about my mental health crisis in my last post, which led to a lot of time for self-discovery (or rediscovery) and prioritizing the things that truly mattered to me. I began to question where things went awry and was able to pinpoint some red flags along the way. The biggest being my devaluing and deprioritization of things that bring me joy and that feel core to who I am as a person, specifically making art. If anything has been constant in my life, it’s been art. I wrote about these pieces in a Wild Daughters Newsletter a little while back, and how, after my mental health crisis, these were some of my first pieces I’d made in a long time that felt true to my own creativity.
They are pure expression and the result of a deep mining of my creativity that was almost lost. They feel familiar yet entirely new, crafted from a place free of self-criticism and perfectionism.
My hope is that these pieces serve as a reminder that the unique mark you leave on the world is precious and needed.
Many times when I’m working on a piece, I find myself in a near-constant internal dialogue that circles the questions: “Is it good? Who cares if it’s good? Will people like this? Who cares if they like it? Is it unique? Who cares if it’s unique? Do I like it? Does it matter if I like it?” But with these pieces, I let all those things go and allowed for “the dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason and outside all moral or aesthetic concerns.” [André Breton from the Surrealist Manifesto]
It begs the question: When one feels compelled to create something, is it more important that the thing is made than the outcome itself? I personally didn’t know where I was going with these pieces, only that they needed to be made. It has been a joy meeting them here on the other side of consciousness.
Join me on opening night at Cool Water, Dry Goods (2413 Professor Avenue, Cleveland, OH) on Friday, 10/10, from 5-9pm during Walkabout Tremont. The show will be up for a few weeks, so if you can’t make it out on opening night, you should definitely check it out at your leisure. (If you’re into vintage goods, specifically vintage work-wear, CWDG is a gem!)
