Pillar of Salt

In my MFA thesis exhibition, Pillar of Salt, I delve into events and cycles from my maternal family’s missionary history. I untangle this history by repeating a litany of actions: marking, erasing, cutting, stitching, sorting, packing. Drawings, textiles, and video all constitute an emotional return to the places that formed me, while revealing a perspective of removal, or betweenness.

Images of ruin function as metaphors for personal, familial, or cultural loss. At the same time, disparate parts become whole in many materials and media – the surface of a quilt, the pages of a book, and the confines of a box – suggesting reconciliation, or potential for it.