Ways of Being, solo exhibition at The School of Art Institute of Chicago SITE 280 Gallery.
While it is impossible to dissect the intricacies of my or anyone's attachment experience in a short explanation, my father's tools throughout childhood were a symbol of his attachment style: they were ordered in neat, classified rows on a pegboard in his workroom and when one disappeared or was out-of-place, he verbally and emotionally ruptured and created fear. Ways of Being is an exhibition birthed from experience and a photograph taken of his tools just before I left my parents’ home the last time before my father passed. It was impulse and intuition acting at once, a knowing that his tools forever imprinted his existence.
What if these tools, symbolic of fear (and my insecure attachment experience), became accessible? What if their identity, attached to my existence, were reinvented toward engagement and warmth? The images and actual tools are explored as lament, play, part of my mental detritus, and how they disappear but emerge differently in future relationships. My desire is to encourage others to explore their attachment style and how it plays into adult relationships.
Selected exhibition images, video (excerpt): spoken word, DeMorge Brown; music, Steve Nyse
