Artist’s Statement

I would be the first to tell you I am not an artist. I just want to get that out of the way. I suspect I may lack the humility art requires.

Maybe I just like breaking plates a little too much. Almost as much as I like putting them back together. I use mosaic to complement the designs of others. And to celebrate Dia de los Muertos. I feel an affinity to the Day of the Dead. I suppose as we all do. At first as through the eyes of a tourist in Mexico: Posada, Frida and Diego, Revolution, Papier-mâché Skeletons, Catrina, and Monsters, all done up in fantastic colors and something sort of like our Halloween but more.

Initially it was enough to simply admire the art that came deep out of Mexico, but over time the imagery took hold of me. Later it was the intention itself – the practice of turning grief into festivity, or perhaps a way of achieving resurrection; or just a way of having fun that forced my hand. I found I could see more by adding to the initial designs, as though each little piece of china allowed me to view the celebration through a different lens.

Mosaic is an old and slow process of associations. Not a puzzle so much as a discipline of setting in beauty what might otherwise be discarded. Mosaic is also a reference to the writings of Moses. I’ve been asked what’s a nice Jewish girl like me doing in a place like this? Breaking plates. And through this ancient process of locating a motif from broken pieces of porcelain, one tiny piece at a time, I am able to party like Catrina atop her own grave.