What’s in a Name

(You may want to read yesterday’s post first.)

Here are items found during renovations of my old Ohio farmhouse several years ago. Prior owners preserved these items to pass along as keys changed hands. While holding the milky-blue glass bottle in my hand which you see here, I felt something raised on the surface. I turned it over to discover my maiden name embossed in the glass. It seemed as if the universe was telling me that I was exactly where I should be.

I’m not sure why, but there is something about names that seems to follow and haunt me. In one of my favorite pieces, now in a private collection, I incorporated an old picture frame that appears to be richly stained wood from a distance but is actually wrapped in painted newspaper, now flaking off in brittle pieces. Most of the text was too fragmented to read…until I discovered words atop each other at the bottom of the frame which paired together to read “about parish”. Inside I placed my artwork of a bird nesting (as I myself nested into a new temporary home), and I incorporated the backside of artwork originally housed within which came from the sea in a type of coastal folk art made up of dozens if not hundreds of tiny seashells. Wouldn’t it be interesting if that artwork were made on a ship that carried distant ancestors?

These posts are a way to record some of these strange coincidences and to share the inspirations behind certain elements of my work. If this is strange and fascinating to you as well, find a few more of these name-based synchronicities by clicking here.