The Purple Shore Crab, 2020
Mix Fabrics, Driftwood, Twine
36” x 48”
My dad had a boat, he loved to go fishing. Originally from Saskatchewan, he was a prairie boy with a hankering for travel and the open water. When I was 4 or 5 he would wake me up early to go fishing with him, before it was even light out. We lived in Maple Ridge just outside of Vancouver but still an hour plus from marinas that he could launch his boat from- Ever so faint is the memory- those were in Port Moody. I am still in love with jagged coastlines, rocky coves and seaweed slicked stones. After one of our trips, back in our yard, my dad was cleaning out his boat and flushing the outboard motor, and a wee little purple crab came tumbling off. I tried to save it and keep it as a pet.
(Food Pairing- Fish and Chips)
More Developed than the rest, 2021
Vintage Brassiere, Embroidery Thread,
44D
When I was in grade 5, some classmates - boys - used to taunt me. At ten years old I was more developed than the rest of the girls in my class. One of the kids had an outdoor pool and the whole class was invited for the year end party. I remember the lead up to it, because these boys told me that they were going to drill a hole in the bathroom wall and watch me change. This was the 80's, and the Porky’s movies were all the rage, I distinctly remember that this was the inspiration for them.
(Food Pairing- Pigs in a blanket).
Genetic Rattle, 2022
Vintage Pyrex Baster, Plastic Mini Baby Figures
12” x 3.5”
Six months after my husband and I married in an abrupt ceremony in 1998. We were back in the US from Germany, where my husband's family was. He was in the US Army, and we were 'home' for Christmas. One evening, his father sat us down in the kitchen and explained to us that my husband's mother had Huntington's Disease. The reason for telling us this, then, they thought I could be pregnant - why else would we have done something so foolish?
I will probably never get over the fear in my husbands eyes that night as he left the room, leaving me standing there confused, lost and scared. I had never heard of Huntington's Disease. I did not know it was an incurable brain disease, it was fatal and that people who have the mutation have a significantly reduced life span with their quality of life rapidly declining often starting in the prime of their lives. Any child born to someone with the HD mutation, as my husband was, has a 50/50 chance of inheriting it, and so would any children they had (if they had the gene).
Several years later we would be sitting in a waiting room watching the clock tick as we waited for the result of his genetic fate. Distractedly I looked at magazines and the images on the wall, all I could see were babies and happy smiling families. When we were called into the office, we sat down directly from a large window, staring out onto a sunny beautiful day full of light. Looking at both of us, the Dr opened the envelope and asked my husband "Do you really want to know?". My world went black. My husband vowed that we were never having children, he had the gene that causes Huntington's Disease.
(Food Pairing Roast Turkey and Gravy)