It is often said that our eyes are the windows to the soul. In our interactions with others, our eyes connect and we look for and transmit levels of sincerity, trust, acceptance and respect with personality and emotions. It is a universal language that we all can interpret.
On a personal level, introspection occurs when our eyes peer into our own eyes in the mirror. Our eyes tend to show how we are truly feeling. In this body of work, I use many fragments of mirrors that force the viewer to shift focus from the eyes of others to connect with their own eyes.
I also incorporate buttons to symbolically represent spiritual connections. Buttons connect me to my mom, a seamstress who passed away during my childbirth. Buttonholes are like unseen eyes, but should we choose to, we can recognize them.
The overall aesthetic of this work is influenced by several ancestral crafts: Memory jars (that were placed on African American graves in the South), Memory boards ('Lukasa' by the Luba people of West Africa), and Quilts by African Americans in the South. These beautifully crafted objects were assembled to celebrate and interpret our physical and spiritual existence.
'EYE CONNECT' is a body of work that gives the viewer an opportunity to explore what happens when we connect with ourselves (using mirrors), others (imagery of eyes looking at us), and spirit (through buttons) surrounded by fragments of memory.
