Transitions

As I moved further away from the “Job Fair series,” which was originally part of my master thesis, my work started to shift from the interpersonal to the intrapersonal. I looked within myself more. Clothing has been a common thread within my work no matter how much the subject matter changes or how the meaning of the work changes. In “Tango” and “Role Model,” I took the figure out of the clothing and I used the clothing as a vehicle to represent the society’s code for identity.

In “Tango,” I wanted to represent a seductive relationship between a man and a woman through shoes, due to my experiences within the dating scene at that time. With “Role Model,” I chose to put an emphasis on a relationship between myself and my then 5 year old niece because at that time, while being single, I was spending a lot of time babysitting her and building a bond with her. Each article of clothing represents a family portrait of both her and I.

“The High” which is like a self-portrait represented through running gear. It represents the feelings that I get when running which is a feeling of complete freedom. When you run so hard and for so long you feel as if you are elevated from the ground and your legs just effortlessly carry you across the pavement. At this time I was making very positive changes within my personal life through diet and exercise which then led into reviving an old interest in the sport of running long distances.

In “The Balance” I wanted to represent how my life has been going since I reached my weight loss goals. It has no longer been about losing and that was and still is a hard concept to get over. Now it is even trickier because I do not want to gain the weight back but I also do not want to lose any more so for the last two years I have been learning how to balance the weight. The numbers in the still life is the 10 pound range that my weight has been steadily going back and fourth between and all the objects around the numbers such as the running gear, water bottle, Diet Mountain Dew bottle, banana and avocado for an example are the products that are helping me maintain the weight.