Process Statement

Accepting when you have to abandon plans and just start fresh is one of the hardest moments as an artist. I started this piece while at the Mudhouse Artist Residency in Crete, and I began with very specific intentions. The vision in my mind was crystal clear: I was going to reinterpret the patterns that roots make on bare ground. But somewhere along the way, the piece fell flat for me. There was no life in it. I didn’t even show it as part of my showcase at the end of the two-week residency. After that, it just sat in my studio for over a year. One day, I pulled it out to see if it sparked any new ideas. And the most simple change sparked for me: I rotated it 90 degrees. It was that act of releasing what I thought it should be, and instead embracing what it wanted to be, that changed it all. With that—and a few strategic pops of color—it had magic again for me. It was those ties to nature, the releasing of expectations, and the fibers spilling out of it, that led me to name it Untamed.