Turn On Every Light
Solo exhibition at University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery, Springfield, IL
Turn On Every Light is a celebration of the human instinct to collect and reinvent. At a flea market in Buenos Aires, I was captivated by stacks of furniture twenty feet high. Within and around the stacks, intricate arrangements of objects were nestled. Banners and hanging objects activated the upper levels, including a chandelier made from an umbrella festooned with shards of frosted glass. Antique items that were dusty and distressed stood with others that were refurbished and restored. Inside various stalls, hand-written signs that warned No Tocar (Do Not Touch), seemed to express concern for the arrangement of the objects rather than their value.
The will to collect requires unique organizational systems. I’m inspired by workshops and garages, where people find innovative ways to make multiples visible and accessible. They invent built-in systems for consumables like spools of wire or stacks of wood. The abundance communicates a richness that fills my mind with possibilities. Regardless of any final product, the potential energy activates the creative spirit.
In Turn On Every Light, I channel the creativity of savers and craftspeople, indulging my desire to transform objects into lamps and chandeliers. I explore the potential of plastic and water to diffuse, amplify, and distort light and color. I embrace the quirks of found objects, and I refurbish them in ways that combine the provisional with the highly polished. Turn On Every Light is a place of safety and escape, a place where visual overload brings pleasure and peace.