Big, Part 3

Island of 14,264 Days

My time in Iceland was huge and I am now, four months after leaving, beginning to realize just how huge. Those 70 days serve as a turning point for me composed of many singular moments bearing weight and lightness simultaneously. I started processing my trip in September when I finally had some space to think. Thoughts started coming to me in a sort-of rush and it was difficult to get words out of my mouth because they were in a jumble in my mind. Since then I have told a few people who are dear to me and through these conversations my thoughts have become clearer.

I will begin by saying a big shift for my work is stirring in me, a shift away from jewelry toward something else, possibly sculpture and installation. Iceland and my "Island" showed me I am capable of expressing myself successfully in techniques and materials outside of jewelry. They also showed me I am interested in expressing myself in other ways, too. I see now, first and foremost, that I am an artist, a title I have been uncomfortable with until recently. My "Island" is the best piece I have ever made and it's fascinating to me that it's non-functional and not jewelry. I think this is telling and I am trying to pay attention.  

I also realized in Iceland that my main goal as an artist is to communicate and connect. I wish to make things that reach a wider audience and are perhaps made in collaboration with people I care about and admire. I do not want to be limited by materials, technique, or scale.

 

a dreamlike first view out my bus window as I left for  

Skagaströnd and the Nes Artist Residency

 
I'm not sure of much else right now simply because it's all so fresh and I want to add that I'm not giving up jewelry entirely. I can say I want to take some time off to explore this shift, give it room to develop and make itself apparent to me. I want to go back to Iceland to do this and I am working on ways to get myself there in the spring. I might do another residency or I might just live in Reykjavík, creating a self-structured residency in an apartment. Either way I will take time to read, research, think, and write about my work and allow this shift, whatever it may be, to happen. 

My friend, Rebeca Mendez, took this picture the day I left Nes. 

The lava fields are perhaps my most-treasured place in Iceland.

And Iceland feels like the perfect place to explore this. I have never felt more at home anywhere and it felt like I was coming home when I stepped off the plane. I was incredibly excited but also sensed tremendous calm. I love Iceland and I miss it every single day. The vast landscape gives my mind and spirit space and is so beautiful and so unusual that it's still near impossible for me to describe. It is a work of opposites, too, something that resonates with me intimately, and I find myself increasingly drawn to it with each passing day. I feel kindred with it and I am absolutely compelled to go back.

Ache, an installation made before I went to Iceland

After my show opens in Sweden I will go to Iceland and live there until July.

Thanks for reading.