I am an artist that focuses on identity. I come from a lineage rich with creativity and artistic expression. I communicate best through my art and photography. I rely on art as a way to voice my opinion and beliefs and to emphasize my emotions. It is my way of documenting life changes and the emotions that come with those changes.
Currently, my work is a reflection of my experiences as a new mother. As I have learned and adjusted to the new day-to-day life, there are specific aspects of motherhood that, in my experience, have been especially hard to talk about to most people. All of the works in this exhibition show are dealing with those topics that I have struggled with.
While I was learning how to provide for my new baby, I had a very hard time adjusting to the routines that come with caring for a newborn. I chose to breastfeed and I produced far too much milk for my baby’s consumption and I was constantly trying to find places to either feed him or use my breast pump. I was also examining every dirty or wet diaper, changing his clothes four times a day or attempting to track his sleep patterns. For a while, this routine behavior really drove me crazy. I thought the only way to cope with everything was to meticulously catalog everything from my over supply of breast milk to the amount, color and frequency of excrement in my baby’s diapers.
The work I have created is meant to document the experiences I am having and to open up a conversation about the hardships and struggles mothers may be facing. My intent is to bombard my viewers with brutal honesty about motherhood and take it for what it is instead of imagining the "cookie cutter" mom or "sugar coated" family life that reality television and the media portrays. I want my work to give a better glimpse of how motherhood has influenced me undisguised and with a sense of being inundated by the daily tasks associated with parenthood.