I am in my most feral form when I am working in the studio. During those hours, I can forget human expectations and follow my natural instincts simply as a creature. The catharsis felt through creation has kept me alive the last several years as I’ve experienced an enormous amount of loss and hurt.

This exhibition is a collection of work I’ve made during this period of grief and healing, as I’ve been reinventing how I want to exist in the human form. “Feral” is about reconnecting to the creature within me without submitting to shallow ideas of how I’m supposed to act. I look to serpents for their embrace of solitude and natural demand for respect. I look to flowers for their endless contribution to the earth and critters, and their lack of resistance to their life cycle each season. I express this sentiment through sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, many of which incorporating repurposed materials. Old sketchbooks, a wedding veil, fluff from wool rugs, and pieces of my first quilt are a few elements of the past that I’ve incorporated into some of these artworks.

Through this work, I hope to create more curiosity and acceptance around grief, sadness, and ferocity, rather than holding those feelings captive. By embodying this feral nature, I learned to advocate for myself, and found a deeper connection to the untamed creatures that live alongside us.