Unraveling
Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities - Arvada CO, 2017
Handmade paper, wire, wood, foam, beeswax, chalk pastel, powdered pigment, graphite, yarn, cotton, light, Poem by Maria Berardi
Unraveling and Ready to Burst showed concurrently at the Arvada Center for the Arts & Humanities during the summer of 2017. These two installations present parallel compositions addressing two contrasting experiences post-conception - one work celebrating the joy of impending motherhood, while the other mourning the heartbreak of miscarriage. I collaborated with Maria Berardi, a gifted poet, with these two works - Maria composed a poem responding to each piece that was displayed as part of the installation. The titles arose out of her poems, as well as a line of text on the arms of the figure in Ready To Burst. There was a recording of Maria reading each poem that could be accessed via cell phone and a code.
Here is the text of the poem that accompanied Unraveling:
Render
Everything is weeping,
unspooling, sinking,
dissolution condensing
into bright wet beads.
The red tent rends itself.
Rivulets of ribbon unravel.
This is where Nature
and whatever
it is
that is
God,
meet.
Nature, red in tooth and claw,
fundamental, essential, unkind.
Mothers – tender.
Mother Nature – never.
Cherubim tumble toward their undoing.
Stars go dark. The great cord frays.
The elements unhook themselves
and fall, atom by atom,
giving way to more and still
more space, more sadness.
Something is shining through
this pain, this depletion,
so much more empty
for having begun to be so full.