About

“You’re not going to get into college without a sports scholarship”. Words I can remember spoken by my father. From a young age I was an athlete. My body was made to move. Trophies lined my walls validating my performance. I learned to love and yearn for the applause of a crowd. After all “Most Likely to be on ESPN” was my senior superlative. I trained, and practiced, building my body into the perfect spectacle. The perfect package for entertainment. To be consumed by all the bodies around me.

My formative years had prepared me for stripping. My athletic black body something of a commodity. All eyes on me as I enticed a crowd into keeping my lights on. False hopes with long blinks. Fake laughs to comfort egos. I was caring for them as much as they were caring for me. My care was emotional and physical labor. Their care was in the form of waving green bills.

Motherhood came unexpectedly. At a time when I was practicing slamming my body as hard as I could into rock bottom my body made life. 

It wasn’t until after I had children that I started to address the fissure being a transracial adoptee created. Instead of trophies I now had a shelf of masks created for surviving being a lonely black child in a predominately white environment. I looked at those big brown eyes of my children and never wanted them to feel like they had to cover them like I did. Never have to dawn an armor against the double - triple - quadruple binds that the system will try to hold them in bondage with.  

This is what I make my work about. The gaze, my hair, labor, care, black bodies, athletics and the multitude of binds encapsulating my identity. My work continues to build upon the increasing amount of diverse representation in the field of sculpture and extended media. My life offers an array of culturally subversive subject matter. Producing work about it opens up dialogue bringing in an audience who may not have been able to see themselves within the a space. This visibility is key to expanding the inclusivity of our practice of art making. Through multimedia installation, video, and performances I aim to examine contemporary issues around identity, race, and gender magnifying the narratives of queer black women making our stories more visible and accessible.