I Meant What I Said When I Said It, 2011

Drawing and typing performance in installation (unfinished cross-stitches, framed drawings, antiques folding table and chair, electric typewriter, old-bond typing paper, overhead projector, acetate roll), Northcutt Steele Gallery

Performed in the Northcutt Steele Gallery in conjunction with the Faculty Exhibition, this work explored anxiety, longing and regret. The performance took place within an installation of failed embroidery linens, drawings, photographs of crayon-drawn portraits, and archaic communication equipment, which will remain on view for the duration of the exhibit. The performance added components to the installation in a kind of compulsive creation without regard to craft. By drawing on an overhead projector, I completed drawings my father made as a child. Interspersed with these live-projector-drawings, I also typed free-form poems inspired by framed drawings of happy children.

This piece explores the deep emotional responses to the conflict of expected life outcomes and gender roles, and true experiences. Covering the walls were unfinished embroidery projects, each with a slight defect that caused them to be abandoned. These become a metaphor for our expectations for our relationships and our disappointment when they are not perfect. The drawings oscillate between childish and refined, between what adult life is imagined to be like and what it really becomes.