Artist Statement

Home can be a challenging topic for many reasons and often across all communities. Much like ourselves, our definition of home undergoes change. The series The Homes We Carry is an attempt to break down the traditional idea of a home being a roof over your heads. Over the course of my life my idea of home has gone through dramatic changes. Growing up I often found myself bouncing from one home to another for many different reasons, then in college I moved the farthest from home that I’d ever been. I was alone.

 I was left with feelings of abandonment, sadness, and uncertainty. Eventually and through these experiences I found out what home really was for me. It was all the people who had shown me kindness, the memories of friends and family, the sense of belonging, warm summer nights, trinkets on shelves, the shoes I walked in. 

This experience made me wonder about others and how their ideas of home had been challenged and changed over the years. With this series I want to create a sense of comfort, hope and understanding for those who are still looking for the feeling of home, have created a home from nothing, moved far away from home, had their homes taken, lost, destroyed or are grieving home. This series is also for those who have found home in people, community and themselves or have been a home to others. You are not alone in your search for home.

Through the Artist In Residency program at Last Chance Mercantile, I got the opportunity to collect and repurpose materials that reminded myself as well as others of home. My use of bright colors, flowers, found objects and textures is an effort to capture the feelings, memories and ideas of non traditional homes, whatever that may look like from one person to the next.