After she wore it in 1959, she had it cleaned and sealed. When I got married the first time, she offered it to me. I felt beautiful.
She had it cleaned and stored, again. I have toted that box around for more than 4 decades. I finally decided to try to find a bride that would like to use it. I opened the box to verify the measurements.
Whoever sealed it up in 1982 ripped my mother off. The lace and seed pearls are absolutely stained with age. Everything should be the same “candle light” color.
January 2017 – March 2018
The concept and work for this installation began January, 2017. It led me to firing ranges in rural Alamance and Orange Counties, NC, to collect 5-gal. buckets of assorted spent bullet shells, some donated and some purchased. There are approximately 15,000 5-mm shells in the blanket. There is bloodied gauze in the basin beneath the bed.
The finger numbing, meticulous job of weaving and gluing these shells became a meditation on the energetic trajectory of life, its split-second destruction by a bullet, the desire to protect, the unending pain of those left behind and our memories of them.
Weekly walks in the Hillsborough Town Cemetery moved me to collect discarded family grave flowers that were separated and blown far afield by the wind. Through my lengthy gathering process, each flower and arrangement here has come to represent someone’s specific grief and love.
Through this artwork I hope to acknowledge those who have been harmed by or lost their lives to bullets, that they not be forgotten.
Seen at The Fruit, Durham, NC.
Chuck has been netting the beds to keep the deer out and Pete just did not understand.
This house is across the street from the entry to the parking lot of the lab where I work. They decorate it for every holiday. Halloween is one of their favorites.
I love these people and I don’t even know them.
I didn’t expect to get this picture.
The plant is a bat-faced cuphea. I got one from Painters Greenhouse in Black Mountain last year and the hummingbirds loved it. Painters is the only place I’ve ever seen it, so I stopped in again this Spring and they had them again. It’s a great hummingbird attractor.
I am the Audience 