During my studio sessions, I experiment with different raw materials to conjure themes or stories behind the design and making goals. Objects’ material characteristics and properties lend themselves to feel, touch, warmth, strength, and the seven senses of material properties. Understanding the fundamental physical origins of material behavior is crucial to optimizing the properties of existing materials through structure modification and processing, designing and inventing new and better materials, and understanding why some materials unexpectedly fail.
Understanding materials through failure sometimes create happy accidents. My go to materials are wood, metal, and fabrics. Example Oregon white oak, black walnut, and Myrtle wood. Leveraging the material properties, in a different way of making that triggers different ways of seeing objects. Mixing and synthesizing materials to create new line of work. The hope is to provoke a conversation that gives insights into the misconceptions of what I am trying to communicate to the viewer through the medium in question.
Exhibit
Fat, funk, skinny, one-legged, Uni, and mixed medium stools.
Building cultural bridges through material linkage. Having empathy, A cross-cultural understanding of cultures, I attempt to find the contrasting similarities between people through objects looking for the signifiers that communicate community.
Material Test
Gestures, hammering, Annealing, hot, and cold the traits and characteristics that create a patina of the stories of our lives. These are experiences we learn from…
“A quality of a gem is directly proportional to the measure of its tribulations”
Materials Bronze, Steel, Wood, and Clay
Gestures Forge, Fabricate, Weld, Join, Build
Qualities Blend, Nature, Material, Community, Space, Activate
Forging & Fabrication
This project aims to explore the unity of opposites by blending visual and cultural vernacular of Kumasi, Ghana, where I grew up and Portland, Oregon, where I currently reside. I am using objects found in familial, communal spaces, specifically stools. In part, the work looks to address misconceptions of what constitutes African art.
Materials Bronze, Steel, Wood, and Clay
Gestures Forge, Fabricate, Weld, Join, Build
Qualities Blend, Nature, Material, Community, Space, Activate
Prototypes
My way of making explores and unifies opposite typologies from different areas through aesthetics to create relatable meaning for my audience. I create functional and sculptural objects for domestic settings that bear visual semantics of African influence.
