*
>> So this is a photo
of my siblings and I.
This is me here, my older sister
and then my middle sister.
This was Easter, 1992,
so I was in second grade.
We were actually
dress rehearsing for
Easter for church.
I took away the faces
only left some detail
of the clothing.
We were seen and not heard
and we didn't have a say so.
We didn't matter.
But on the outside
looking in
it looked like we had it all.
And it was the most unhappiest
time in my life.
*
I'm creating a stencil.
I'm the youngest of four.
After my grandparents died,
that's when our family kind of
went awry and things went
kind of crazy and my mom
was addicted to drugs
so she couldn't take care of us.
I entered the foster care system
pretty early on.
Before the age of six.
Art was the main thing I did.
I felt this interesting
satisfaction that I could make
something from nothing, and
that is something no one could
take from me.
So I continued it and I moved
through foster home through
foster home, and our things
would be destroyed,
thrown out people would say
you have to start over
because you're with us now.
But then when I went to college
there was a whole new world
of people.
It was very weird for me
to have friends that had
both parents at home
and they were married and
they still are together.
I was introduced to
screen printing and
I realized that I can create
my story somehow
in this new medium.
So this is mine.
I did it yesterday in like,
I don't know, two hours.
This is one of my
earlier pieces.
I came across this photograph
of me in third grade.
And I thought about
how foster care existed for me.
A lot of the foster homes
they would get my siblings and I
just for the money.
You are telling your story in
just this image,
and it's so significant because
what you went through
and from there it gave me the
momentum that I needed to
continue to create this
personal narrative work.
My uncle died in prison
and I remember there wasn't
a funeral, they just
cremated him and shipped
his ashes in a box.
That really bothered me and
I felt like as an artist
I had a duty to somehow
fix this, or right this wrong,
and say goodbye to my uncle.
All I had was my uncle's
mugshot
and his rap sheet.
And then I went online
and I found all of
the mugshots from my family
that exist,
there's at least five,
put their images in the frames
to look like this is
a really upscale family,
and these are really mugshots.
My purpose was that
there's images out there
and there's nothing we can
do about it but embrace it.
I feel like my personal story
and the process of the art
that I've chosen to make
for instance like
screen printing,
it goes hand in hand.
Because in screen printing,
there's a lot of layering,
there's a lot of covering up.
There's a lot of unveiling and
you can reveal certain parts
and so my background is
the same way.
Abandoned playground.
These chains, and this idea of
not being free.
Nothing else straightens the
hair quite like this.
The entire exhibition actually
started with a photograph,
which was this photograph.
I'm just drawn to the gesture
more than I am
the people in it.
It was once again from a dark
part of my childhood
where I was mostly sad.
We did pose and we did pretend
almost like things were okay.
I use screen printing more as
a template to get the image on,
once the image is on there
I kind of fuss with it
and mess it up
and beef it up.
I wanted to bring out
the texture in the dresses.
And fabric is tulle.
Tulle is what is used in like
fancy dresses or
wedding dresses,
that material that fluffs
things up and makes things
bigger than what they are.
We were made to look better
than what we were going through
or better than our situation,
yet in reality it
was awful.
I hear from viewers,
you want it to be happy,
but there is something about it
that saying this is not
a happy moment.
I think it was easier for me
to make this personal work
about my family
because we weren't close.
When my family started
to come around,
here we have this art
to talk about.
*
My mom was incarcerated
at the time.
She is not on drugs any more.
She's graduated from MATC.
She's like, oh, the past
is the past.
I don't care, so you can
tell whoever.
I had no idea that the work
would become
a little bit bigger
than me.
I sometimes don't know why
people buy what they buy.
The viewer can envelop
themselves in the story.
When I make the work about
those particular moments,
it's going to someone's home
and it's theirs
and I like that the work
has a home.
Nice, good job.
I think that's the hard part,
trying to figure out
what continues to happen.
Right now we're at the Milwaukee
Institute of Art and Design.
I started out with one class
and the one class
turned into two classes.
I've been here since
spring of 2012.
This is really smart.
I've been told by
several people sometimes
that, why do you teach?
Why don't you just
quit teaching,
and just become an artist?
I think it is best to
give back in some way,
and it also helps my work.
If you think you're done
you should probably
step away from your piece,
from across the room,
and see what it's saying to you
from a distance.
I feel like I'm doing
what I'm supposed to be doing
at the time that
I'm supposed to be doing it.
Because of my background,
I do feel pretty accomplished
with where I am.
I feel like I have
a lot more to do.
I don't know what that is yet,
but I feel like
I'm pretty content