House Series
The process of forgiving is a piece that helped me exam my own judgments with my mother and her smoking. She chose to “secretly” smoke, most likely for fear of judgement from her children. For the last six months I have been making artwork using tobacco and cigarettes that explores my relationship with family, home and my mom.
As a nonsmoker, buying cigarettes, smelling like cigarettes, being seen with cigarettes made me confront my own insecurities and self-judgments. I started to create small houses drawn with cigarette ash and screenprinted and flocked with cigarette tobacco. The process of creating them became moments of meditation on the past, the messy and conflicting stories of family and most specifically my mom. In an emotional moment, full of complicated feelings where love and forgiveness coexist with sadness and pain – I felt a deep connection to my mother and all my judgement for her and myself went away.
And as I continued to work, I thought about love and compassion and the power these emotions have when we think beyond ourselves.
