Fragments began with press-moulding slabs of clay into a cast of my torso (which came to be when a friend of mine needed practice creating belly casts for her birth doula clients). As I smoothed the clay into the curves and cavities of my own form I wondered how the pieces would later fit together. After much debate it became clear that the objects needed to be presented in way that shows them reunited with my body. This concept became the essence of what I now call Fragments.

It is a body of work about brokenness and reclamation. When we lose touch with pieces of ourselves through life experiences that force us to put survival first and wholeness later, the reclamation of those pieces can become a lifelong process we must endeavor on in the aftermath of the traumatic events. My own body had become not mine in many ways that I succeeded in burying deeply for years. Through re-creating some of these parts that have been lost or stolen, disenfranchised from my own sense of self, a process of healing has begun to materialize. I share this work in the hope that others might find the inspiration and courage to take inventory and reclaim the fragments they didn’t know they’d lost.