It was January of 2020 when I brought this piece together. I thought this was my last visit to San Francisco before moving the following April. The first season of Blown Away had just been released months ago and I was so optimistic, ready for my new future. I had no idea that this would be one of the last sculptures I’d make before the pandemic hit.
My art form requires breath and what was captured in this piece became so precious that I hid it from the world. Studios were closing left and right, there was a shortage of glass and its raw materials, and it was so clear to me how as an artist I was not considered essential to society. I didn’t want to let this piece go because it was one of the last pieces of evidence of the before-times.
I decided to finally share this piece with you all because I think it’s important to acknowledge our need for collective grief. Grief of lost time, lost loved ones, loss of ourselves and who we were prior to the pandemic, and loss of what we used to hope for back then.
I feel so lucky to have survived the past couple of years. All the opportunities to ugly cry and meditate. I’m grateful for all the ways that I’ve grown and changed for the better. Learning the importance of why it is that I make art despite societal norms. And now seeing that everything I wished for in the past can still come true, it just might not come true in the way I assumed it would.
