Manus (2023, Santa Fe, New Mexico)

Across my practice, I examine questions surrounding faith, spirituality, and religious institutions. I probe into the relationship between belief systems and human behavior: how prescribed moral structures influence our care and perception of self and others.

In 2021, I devised a social media campaign--a public invitation asking people of all faiths and beliefs to contribute one pair of gloves to a collaborative work of art that explores the act of prayer. Their task was to sit with a pair of cotton gloves, wear them, and mark them with red ink as they form a prayer or affirmation for a single recipient--Caspian, a five-year-old boy living in New Mexico who suffers from severe seizures. The mark-making process is like a moving meditation, and allows spoken words and rituals to become evidenced, as if a prayer could occupy physical space. I received by mail nearly 2000 gloves from people all over the world, representing eleven countries, and an astonishing assortment of cultures and beliefs.

I hand-dyed the marked gloves using Indian Madder Root pigments. I then shaped the gloves over wooden molds and cast them, creating varied gesture and lifelike dimensional form.

Upon installation, I suspended the gloves from the ceiling in an undulating, organic mass, together with hundreds of hand-made brass shepherd’s bells which moved and rang with gentle breezes through near-by windows. The floor is covered in white volcanic ash collected from the mountains of Okeh-Owingeh Pueblo, New Mexico. Beneath the gloves is a child-sized bed covered in a woven blanket marked with a hand-inked pattern representing the star of Bethlehem. The initial installation pictured here was a private viewing for Caspian and his family; the following photographs and video represent Caspian’s interaction with the piece. The piece will be installed in its entirety for public view in 2024.