How the Light Gets In
2024
This work was created in response to my close friend's terminal cancer diagnosis, which landed like a grenade amid the constant dark and disturbing news of the world. Watching a loved one’s suffering firstand while also seeing the image stream of war, genocide, natural disasters and political chaos had me oversaturated and unable to function. Looking for a way to express my own grief and society's collective despair, I used my art as a therapeutic practice; turning to mother nature to search for light in a dark time.
The ancients once believed that the stars were holes in the sky where ancestors looked down on us from above, eyes shining. That simple thought somehow brought comfort, knowing my friend would soon be among the stars. Before she died, she told me the thousand pinpricks of pain we experience in life are also the places in us where we grow wiser, more courageous, more loving.
The words of a Leonard Cohen song echoed this idea-
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
In this series I created work that layers my original photography with collected paper ephemera into unfixed collages to represent the fragility and fleeting nature of life. I then painted on an abstract dot pattern, rephotographed the pieces and poked hundreds of tiny holes in the resulting prints, adding places for light to get in and love to shine out. It's a multi-faceted process that synthesizes my many creative practices to alchemize the dark materials of grief into light.
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Anthem
The birds they sang at the break of day
"Start again", I heard them say:
Don't dwell on what has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah, the wars they will be fought again,
the holy dove, she will be caught again,
bought and sold and bought again
the dove is never free.
We asked for signs, the signs were sent
the birth betrayed, the marriage spent,
Yeah, the widowhood of every government
signs for all to see.
I can't run no more with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud,
but they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.
You can add up the parts, you won't have the sum,
you can strike up the march, there is no drum,
Every heart, every heart to love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring,
forget your perfect offering,
there is a crack, a crack in everything
that's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in,
that's how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen