Enameled copper, soft solder

3.5” x 3.25” x 4.75”

Process/Concept:
When I was 7 years old, my brother went missing. I couldn’t stop crying because I was convinced I would never see him again. He was my protector and I looked up to him. And then he was gone. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead. I didn’t really understand what was happening at the time and we weren’t allowed to talk about it. Part of me blamed myself for him going. My family fell apart. There were so many secrets, so much blame, and his absence was always felt. There was a hole in our lives shaped like him. 22 years later he returned. By that time, he had been gone longer than I had been alive before he disappeared. While it was definitely a good thing that he returned, we were pretty much strangers. I was an adult, a business owner, a survivor of grief. For years I wished for him. But not everything was resolved when he came home. I had hoped that when he came back, my relationship with my brother would be magically restored… I guess I’m still waiting. Memory palaces are used as a mnemonic device. My memory palace of this time period in my life would be shaped like the old red barn behind my childhood home with a rusty metal roof. This sculpture that I made is all enameled. It is adorned with images from my childhood, using the waterslide decal method. For the roof, I corrugated some extra thin metal and enameled that. The panels are sewn on and remind me of how sometimes the metal would move in the Florida hurricanes. I call this piece, “Still Waiting”. I think part of me will always be waiting for the version of my brother who lived in my memories.

From the Artist:
One of the things that I love about waterslide decals is that you can embellish your enameled surfaces with your own images. Because of the iron oxide in the ink, all of the images look sepia toned. Some artists do not like this, but I think they look like old photographs and is perfect for working with themes of memory. I was trained as a painter and mixed media artist. One of my goals in my work is to blend my background in painting and illustration with my metalwork. Enamel is a perfect vehicle for adding narrative content. This piece is not so much about my brother, as it is about me dealing with his absence. It shows me before and after his departure – the carefree child who played with baby dolls and the sadness of a child who was not allowed to talk about his disappearance and found comfort in cats and imaginary landscapes. There aren’t many pictures of me from after he disappeared. My father was an amateur photographer, but after my brother went missing, he stopped taking pictures. Memory is such a funny, mutable thing. I am starting to forget. In conversations with other people, I realize that some things have been blocked out and some things have been let go off as I have learned to navigate loss and healing. The photos are evidence of that time. Much of my work references the imaginary world I created in the wake of his leaving, but I rarely make work so directly about those events. This enameling process allows me to do that.