Selected Works
(List)
Fountains
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Relief
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Ringholders
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Velvet
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Is Your House in Order?
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BLAXIDERMY
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Nails
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Fountains // Relief // Ringholders // Velvet // Is Your House in Order? // BLAXIDERMY // Nails //
A Fountain for Survivors
A Fountain for Survivors is a sheltered fountain in an iconic public space. Adorned and protected by a carapace of hundreds of thousands of acrylic fingernails, this fountain is my dedication and offering to Survivors and is open to the public that is outside in Times Square. On the topic of definition, Survivors know who they are; no one else can proclaim that for you. Conceived and created during a time when we are socially distanced, my goal with this work is to make a temporary monument that mirrors the experiences of masking & interiority that many have known, and which have now become a part of all of our lives. I started working with acrylic fingernails, that Black femme craft and protective style, over 13 years ago, and they have since become ubiquitous. So, I am most excited about the expressions of imagination that this work already has and will continue to inspire.
BLAXIDERMY Pink
BLAXIDERMY Pink is a healing space and dedication to my 14 year old self. I am thanking them for the moment of clarity when they picked up their field hockey stick in self-defense to put a stop to the years of child abuse they experienced. I am offering them the hair product they knew best as a child, Luster's Pink Lotion, as a salve for protective styles. I am offering them "Relief" tiles inspired by their favorite sneaker bottoms to thank them for walking away. With multiple fountains filled with Pink Lotion, custom cowrie shell ouroboros “protective style” rugs, and silicone panels referencing sneaker outsoles, this fragrant and welcoming space is an offering of gratitude for tweenage power.
Swag Surf / Water Movement
Swag Surf - Water Movement. I see fountains as performing architecture and as a stand in for the body. I’m interested in their impermanence, exuberance, and the technology behind dancing fountains.
Red Drink: A BLAXIDERMY Juneteenth Offering
Red Drink: A BLAXIDERMY Juneteenth Offering is a palm tree shaped fountain filled with 800 gallons of Big Red soda. Guests were welcome to participate in a ritual performance: toast to freedom, and pour into the fountain with this celebratory drink for the ancestors for the Juneteenth holiday. Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the delayed Emancipation of enslaved peoples in Texas, was the one day of the year that Black children were welcome at Playland parks in Texas during the Jim Crow era.
Tenderheaded
Tenderheaded Fountain. Lusters Pink Lotion is a classic Black American owned and manufactured hair product, frequently used on little girls as they sit between their caretakers legs. It's toxic, but alluring. The sqweel 2 oral sex toy is suspended above a fondue fountain filled with Lusters, its silicone "tongues" gently lapping the lotion.
Drank Nº1
Drank Nº1 Fountain
Fountain of Your Youth
A kinetic sculpture that churns up plastic pony beads, creating a glorious soundscape and landscape of Black Girl Magic. Pony beads are the traditional trade beads used in Transatlantic slave trade, the tale of the sale of Manhattan, and are now found on "protective hairstyles" for young girls.
wtf is juice / gw smile
wtf is juice / gw smile consists of a plastic party fountain filled with fragrant purple liquid placed on top of a column. The first thing you notice when it's in the room is the smell. The column has gold foil tissue paper and a stack of images of President George Washington's dentures-- which were made from snatched enslaved peoples and animal teeth. The column is draped with white velvet which I have burned out with acid with my own designs, including a pattern with a hieroglyph for "mouth" and abbreviations for the phrase "what dat mouf do?" (WDMD). The process of burning out is called "devoré," literally, devoured. The purple liquid splashes onto the velvet as the fountain runs, making it Colored. The train of the velvet is held down by a brick that has been covered in sneaker rubber. There are neon purple lights and grapeade cans within the sculpture as well.