CABIN FEVER
2019- 80x100", Mixed Media
I made this piece when I was traveling abroad in a small town in the South of France. I felt a sense of isolation there even though I was constantly surrounded by people. I wanted to depict what it felt like to begin to see my reflection in the faces of others. People melted together just like memories on warm summer nights around a bonfire sipping french wine laughing thinking this is the happiest I'll ever be. As an extrovert, I often source most of my energy from those I surround myself with, however that's a lot to ask when everyone I expected energy from was also a burnt out artist on the hunt to find themselves in the shadows of the Provincial mountains.
The base of this piece is liquid watercolor and ink on canvas.
The Polaroid portraits are of the people who helped shape me to the person I identified as at this time. each portrait has another illustrated version of that person to mimic the four larger self portraits seen on the canvas.
The letter beads tell the story of my time in France and what it felt like to feel isolated while feeling so alive and free. Scroll down to read it.
"I went to summer camp for something like nine years let’s just say ten, that sounds cooler. I went to summer camp for ten years, that’s a long time for a young person. I’m twenty-one and I still feel like the same little girl whose dad dropped her off and expected a hug goodbye but just got a girl who leapt out of the car fully prepared to nosedive into five weeks of pure blissful ignorance or something more eloquent like that. I didn’t know what to expect when I came to Lacoste I had a fear of isolation and cabin fever. What I didn’t know is, is that Lacoste is summer camp.
We all shuffle to meals together at the same time, we do arts and crafts, we go on field trips where we are responsible for a buddy. Summer camp is tucked away on a hilltop where there is magic in every sunrise and a whisper in the wind begging you to stay. It’s a one night fling wishing you hadn’t been so handsy the night before. Its slow dancing in the dark wishing moments like that weren’t fleeting bound to be forgotten come the start of fall. Its birds that don’t sleep that remind you everything is going to be okay. It’s being knee deep in fluttering grasses ticked by poppies. I’ve never seen them until now.
Every flower, every sun flare, every late night dance party makes me ache for a place I haven’t even left yet. It’s a longing nostalgia and a bittersweet goodbye. It’s what I’ve always dreamt of and I never want to wake up."