Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing a broken vessel with a precious metal, such as gold or platinum. A repaired vessel isn’t the same as it was before the trauma, nor is it diminished. The essence of the original vessel is still there, but golden scars now trace the lines where the fracture occurred…
I am a survival of childhood abuse. Because the abuse was such a regular part of my life, I never knew to seek help. It wasn’t until my son reached a certain age and I could see how a healthy household and family dynamic played out for him that I had a frame of reference for understanding my own childhood neglect and abuse.
For years I’d find myself fantasizing about what my life would be like had I not experienced the abuse. These exercises ultimately left me angry and immobilized. After more than a decade of therapy, medication, support groups, journaling, and countless hours spent talking with friends and loved ones, I have been able to embrace the fact that my negative experiences played a part in making me who I am today. The resilience, awareness of light (or darkness), and problem-solving skills that are so crucial in my career as an artist are skills that were born out of the abuse. Had I not experienced it, who knows who I’d be or what I’d be doing today. That’s not to say I’m grateful to have been abused, but rather to articulate that I can see how it shaped who I am today, and I can therefore make peace with it.
This leads me to this set of images. A few weeks ago my studio was broken into and much of my gear was stolen. At the time I felt angry and felt violated, but I noticed that I didn’t feel despair. The years of self-work had allowed me to trust in my community and self-regulation practices to inform the scared little kid in me that we are not alone and we will be ok. Sure enough, I was flooded with support from friends and followers, and my insurance replaced everything within days of the loss.
When it came time to replace the broken studio window, I opted to replace the glass with a steel plate. The burglary created an opportunity for me to learn and tighten up, so this won’t happen again. A wonderful thing happened in that decision, encapsulating the whole experience of trauma, loss, and healing. The steel plate had such a gorgeous patina on it that I knew it’d make the perfect backdrop. My first shoot with it was a self-portrait. For some of them I removed my shirt, making myself vulnerability, with the steel at my back. After that I made a multiple exposure, with the base layer being the steel, which shows through the shadows in my face. To create the rest of the images I immersed prints in fluid and rephotographed the images.