Magnolia
2024

A constant is everywhere I have lived there is a Magnolia tree nearby. My grandmother would finish washing breakfast dishes and then head out to the yard to pick up each magnolia leaves by hand that had fallen since the day before. She would neatly stack them in her palm. Letting me feel the underside of a leaf to enjoy the velvety soft underside. In the spring when the tree is overtaken with white blooms it transforms the air with a sweet perfume.

During one of my residencies is growing the largest magnolia trees I have ever seen. As I walked through the garden each day I felt at home with the leaves crunching beneath my feet. I could not help myself and had to gather a few handfuls. This work was a way to ground me in my home away from home. As I punched holes in the leaves and started binding them back together it was an act of self preservation. It was a way for me to process a trauma that has left me feeling misplaced, discarded and empty. Through the act of disasembling and rearranging or adding new elements from the garden. The leaves changed from a place of belonging to being let go of. They are now something new, whole, and independent. The act of creating the series was an act of mindfulness and allowing art to be a safe place to process through difficult emotions.