There is a castle that stands tall and irregular jutting into the bay of Baia, weathered and beaten and worn by years of pounding water. Hidden beneath the waters of this now sleepy town is a history ranging from aqueducts to bacchanal. In this land and sea of the Phlegraean Fields, I seek memory. Memory I breathe in this air of fire and water, through the touch of these ancient stones. Memory not my own but of earlier generations passed through blood and image and word. It is a structure of many pasts; once a palace, an orphanage, a school, where my cousins played ball, fallen to disrepair, reclaimed, now a museum. Under the watchful eye of giant wooden joints, hauntingly the same as those of his workbench where I now write these words, the boy from Bacoli, my grandfather went to school and studied his craft. It is oddly comforting and grounding to finger this worn wood worked by his hands. The workbench that stands in my home is a portal, a connection to standing on personal hallowed ground an ocean away. It is swimming in these waters and standing on this stone that I know what it is to be rooted and connected and of a place where I have no birthright, where I can speak but few words, but am home and whole. On this land and in these waters on this rock the blood that pumps through my veins is alive and I am brought to tears of joy of the rush of memories not my own and yet defining of a self emerging. This place Castello Aragonese di Baia, reinvented over and over again. Broken and repaired and reinvented I am Bacolese. For decades I had a hard fast rule. I do not make work about the body, at least not about my body. I told visual stories of land and food and families and the people who build these places. In choosing the projects, in how I moved through those space, the elements coming together in the frame in a way only I could see, I bring myself to the images, open receptive waiting and giving voice I told their stories. And while I cannot disconnect myself from the images, there is a distance behind the lens; the camera as armor. But this body of work, is personal and messy and technical and unexpected. This is visceral. It began simply. Drawing the castle one day. Then again. Until through repetition a need formed. The ink and graphite ever present on my skin, my mind increasingly reconnecting with the sensual, and sense of the physical. Finding myself newly conscious in my body, sinking into the hot heading waters of the tub after days in the studio, I notice the tiles, the tree limbs swaying beyond the window, a leg emerging from the soapy water and with it a need to draw what I see. Doodles became drawings that became prints. In a body broken and repaired and reinvented and battered and reinvented the links became more clear. The castle and this body are one. This body and mind are strong but the years have brought injuries, scars both seen and not, emotional hits and spinal surgeries, resulting in seemingly constant reinvention, reconstruction. The hands that slide through graphite and ink, that shape wood, and without which my words stall, are powered by nerves going rouge from time to time. And in all that there is beautiful order and chaos, fire and water. I have turned to various printmaking techniques to dive into these ideas. I need my hands in the work. I find the mechanical process and the inversion of images paired with the visceral act of mark making endlessly fascinating. Monoprint has an element of risk. Running the plates through the press provides just enough distance from the vulnerability pressed into the fibers of the paper. Printmaking lends itself to play, exploration, and process driven work.
Two years ago I started photographing my students in class and camp at Arts Council of Princeton. What began as a way to document class sessions and process what was happening in my studios, evolved into a new body of work and documentary project that explores the creative energy of our youngest artists at work. It is an active and ongoing project. The photographs are made with an iPhone. The choice has allowed the work to be subtle, nuanced, and unobtrusive.
These are images made in the moment. These are moments of exploration, curiosity, discovery, and play. There are quiet moments in the organized chaos of the studios. There are moments of focus, process and flow. There are moments of connection and ideas taking shape.
The Art Makers will be on view at The Arts Council of Princeton in the Lower Gallery February 10- March 9, 2024.
Opening Reception February 10 | 3-5pm
