Do You Count? 

BFA Thesis Solo Exhibition, UAF Gallery, Fairbanks, AK

Do You Count? is a metaphorical representation forcing participants to walk around the installation, retracing the path of predetermination of many women before us and some of the limitations that still exist today.  The commercialized sexualization of women through advertising dehumanizes women.  Like a glass ceiling, attendees can also see through the negative space between the goddesses on the abacus into the rest of the exhibition, replicating life, where we do not always give value to who is right in front of us, or the symbolism that we can only see, but never pass the glass ceiling.  Further, the goddesses are moveable along the steel rods, making this sculptural installation interactive for the audience.  Women's bodies, and particularly their sexuality, are commercially exploited for the benefit of making money. This interactive abacus is in support of humanizing women.  Is there an emotional response when you touch a goddess to move her and use her as a counting bead, as society uses women?

You Count

Instructions on vase:   100% of donations from this table of goddesses goes to the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living.  You Count signifies the loneliness and devastating effects violence creates on victims. There is no designated price affixed to these goddesses, challenging you, the purchaser, to see and find value in these humans who have suffered from the hands of other humans, opening the conversation about victims of abuse and bringing a spotlight to them saying that we see them and they do count. The sale from these female/male goddesses goes directly to the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living.  Cash or check may be deposited into the large vase.

Game Face

This dresser portrays the decisions made when getting ready to face the day and choosing clothing or ‘armor’, as we face or protect ourselves from society. The second hand dresser installation represents that even furniture has a story and is multi-layered, as it is reused within this Exhibition adding another story to its timeline.  

Tool Rack  is a metal pipe frame sitting on the rear top of the dresser holding three goddesses graced with tools representing the mirror of the dresser reflecting that tools are used and integrated into our being.  As one prepares themselves to greet the world, this piece reflects back to the individual that they are choosing tools to move about the world.

Proud Mary  is permission to own our true identities to support and give back to those who are still finding their voice.  Together great things can happen.

Tool Gallery

Tool Gallery represents my lineage in figurative form, showing that the tools used, whether we have conscious recollection or not, effect generations going forward.  There are vessels representing that we all hold our own stories and it is a tool that every human being uses consciously and unconsciously, however effects our daily lives.  Throughout the exhibition are examples of different tools used to make decisions from the moment we wake up in the morning to interaction with other humans in an effort of trying to count within the stereotypes of society.

When using stereotypes against other humans, we limit human empathy and damage our communities. Everything is subject to change, however in the end what matters is that each and every single one of us does count.