Stars appear as guides: the North Star, the heavens, cultural strength, and sometimes the borrowed language of the American flag. Hearts entered the work when my sister Heather fell ill with cancer- a fight she ultimately lost- becoming signs of life force: joy, energy, and love that refuse to disappear.
History is embedded throughout. In the work honoring Ida B. Wells, “strange fruit” trees reference lynching victims and the violence Wells documented in The Red Record, with red holding both bloodshed and testimony. Beneath the collage “Virginia 1619” are maps of the Deep South that trace the political geography of slavery, the Civil War, and the racial legacies that continue to shape the present.
Together, these materials and symbols form a kind of navigation. They honor the strength of my sister Heather, my best friend Sharon, who was the first friend I made at Wesleyan University. They honor my grandmother, who first placed fabric in my hands, and they honor the ancestors and goddesses who stand watch. Stardust becomes a language for what survives — a way of asking whether those we love are still out there, and answering that they are not gone, but moving, guiding, and returning in different forms.