“Now I am old and I know transformation is slow.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer
This wearable sculpture is an act of transformation approached from the experience of continued change of the transgender body. Its process is continual: trees were turned to pulp, turned to paper, printed on and bound into an encyclopedia of literature.  After that book was deaccessioned, I processed those pages into new paper pulp which I sculpted onto a dress form and painted. At the end of the exhibition Turn the Page at the Providence Public Library, the dress was transformed again, pieces ripped off by artist talk attendees. I invited them to write aspirations for transformation on the pieces they took.
The text on “Palimpsest” is transcribed from journal entries written over a span of approximately two years. They are overwritten with abstract drawings to obscure their meaning and demonstrate never-ending change to the body.
As the seventh installment in the Book Body series, this artwork continues a project on communication’s inherent failures. The Book Bodies are performances of gaps in representation, holding space for both the danger of misrepresentation and the creative potential in misinterpretation. These sculptures exhibit the impossibility of knowing anyone fully, while celebrating play that facilitates connections between others.
2025-6
handmade paper from deaccessioned book, watercolor, sumi ink, cotton thread, participatory performance