Self Portrait with Cucumbers
Welded Steel installation at Franconia Sculpture Park
Installed 2016


When I got out of the shower, the glass was foggy and I could trace my reflection into the hummidity of the mirror, drawing the lines with my damp finger and watching them drip into eachother as their representations of my body became distorted.
My drawings never look like me. I used to believe that my face was too plain to be drawn in lines. Once I made a painting of my body. It was acrylic paint on canvas.
The painting wasn’t mounted on a frame, but instead was done on a canvas suit that I sewed. I had hand gloves, foot booties and a head mask. The final product was horrifying; a disturbing, painterly version of a nude figure with holes for my eyes and mouth to peek out. It did not capture the way that I looked, but it is who I was. I always admire the way that my handiwork reveals me, and I can look back on my work as an outsider to appreciate the details and how they relate to my life. “Self Portrait With Cucumbers” does not look like me, but it comes from me. Learning to work with metal for the first time, making my first large sculpture, it seems natural that I ended up with this figure. I worked the rebar like an ink drawing, exagerating the curves and lines. The sheet metal was my paint, full of patterns and textures. Without knowing what to expect from a welding project, the drawn lines and stitched detail undoubtedly make this a product and a portrait that is me.