Unbecoming Series

Unbecoming: 2019

These glazed porcelain “containers” record the unbecoming of healing with all the challenges and deceptions of transformation. This body of work came together after a breast cancer diagnosis. The months of chemotherapy promised to hinder my studio time and creative energy. It was uncertain if I could continue working in the studio, despite being told to quit my teaching job, cancel my gym membership and avoid public venues for the following year. It was all so shocking, much like the first time a newborn wakes you five times in a single night. Then a new routine sinks in and you can’t quite make out the line separating your life into before and after.

The effect of the treatments were gradual so I began a project that could be built in a couple of hours and set to dry immediately. A drastic shift from my usual process. Pushing and stretching thin porcelain strips around newspaper moulds became the new metaphor for living with cancer. The summer of 2019 was in an odd way, a glorious summer – I sat long hours on my front steps watching the neighbourhood, my husband turned perfect as we biked many kilometres together and planted a tree. By the fall, the pharmaceuticals had obliterated most activities and thoughts into hours of chills under the covers and forgetting the threads of my story.

This dance with time has imbibed my artistic practice with acceptance and reinforced the deliberate attempt at slowing down and taking the time to appreciate the pleasure of labor. Now that my life has regained a busy beat, I build a “container” here and there in between the longer sculpture constructions. The in between rhythm of making these pieces, with their familiar textures and general precariousness, parallels the delicate structure of wellness, and how tightly hinged it can be to a before and an after.