Stale Hope Pieces
The pieces in this series comprise my undergraduate work, which conceptually stemmed from my mother's terminal diagnosis (ALS / Lou Gehrig's disease) and my time as her co-caretaker.
Pictured in the first two images, Inelegant Degeneration: & Then There Was None is a visual metaphor for the disease progression of ALS--a series of seven boxes, each covered with screen-printed fabric (degenerating motor neurons) and topped with progressively burned candles.
Pictured in the last image, Stale Hope: Too Much Was Never Enough is a statement about the compartmentalization of pain and how pain impacts us no matter how we try to keep it neatly tucked away. Stale Hope is a double-weave with plastic packaging from medical shipments, dental floss, coffee, baby wipes--all materials used in my mother's care-taking.
Image Descriptions:
Image 1: Megan’s Mom, Jill, sits in a power wheelchair and views Inelegant Degeneration, which is installed on the gallery wall in front of her. Jill is on the right side of the image and only her left arm, green short-sleeve shirt and dirty blonde hair are visible. Inelegant Degeneration consists of seven 12x12 wooden framed boxes with deep yellow and brown screen printed fabric stretched inside each box. From left to right, each box contains a progressively melted candle.
Image 2: View with Inelegant Degeneration in the foreground, from a perspective very close to the gallery wall on which the piece is installed. Megan and her Mom view the piece, as Megan points toward it and is in mid-speech. Megan is standing, wearing a brown dress over a white t-shirt, clutching her side with her unpointed arm. Megan’s Mom is sitting in her power chair, mouth slightly ajar and tissue in hand, looking at the piece. This Shit Hurts, six stitched coffee filters in a frame is in the background on the back gallery wall, as well as Self-Defense Mechanism, a woven piece on a dress form.
Image 3: View peaking from behind Stale Hope, a suspended weaving partially in view. Visible in the background is Megan guiding her Mom through pieces in the gallery, including (from left to right) Family Portrait, Untitled, and Perceptual Misconceptions.
Image 4: Gallery view along right wall. In foreground is Perceptual Misconceptions which is an encaustic piece on stretched paper.
Image 5: Gallery view along left wall. In the foreground Stale Hope is suspended. Stale Hope is a double weave with plastics and other found materials. The piece is comprised of over 100 individually woven pockets connected together through the weaving process.