Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Art (MFA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Art

Advisor/Mentor

Springer, Bethany

Committee Member

Young, Chase

Second Committee Member

Perez, George

Third Committee Member

Schmitt, Jean

Fourth Committee Member

Drolen, Rebecca

Keywords

Black heritage; home; light; materiality; memory; woodworking

Abstract

"the noise of time…" is a meditation on home, memory, and the fluidity of time, told through image and sculpture (materiality). Rooted in the complexity of Black identity and ignited by the passing of my father, this work began as a challenge: to create something interior and vulnerable, specific to my experience yet open enough for others to hold. Influenced by Gaston Bachelard’s "The Poetics of Space," I consider home—our personal intimate space—not only as a container for objects, but as a sanctuary for dreams, remembrance, and complicated emotions. I observe the home as a structure that holds what cannot be seen—“the ongoing texture of our daily experience” . Through my camera’s viewfinder, I search for beauty in mundane moments, transforming the invisible and ephemeral into a tactile archive. Polaroids move me, in the magical way an image taken yesterday can feel decades old with time bending, folding, and overlapping. Often drawn to photograph a flicker of sunlight dancing across a wall, it’s as if some places smile at me. I use the bandsaw to create objects symbolic of these moments where a fragment of walnut is sanded until it is silky smooth and a piece of scrap wood once discarded now has new life. If our homes hold more than our physical belongings... what do (can) trees hold? What histories are embedded in their rings, knots and scars? My creative practice explores these questions as I play with form, shape and line to create vessels and images. I was one of those kids who never wanted to grow up—I just couldn’t see the upside. I never wanted to stop having time to daydream and imagine answers to these kinds of questions. Through artmaking I find permission to revisit my childhood daydreams of listening to trees tell me their stories. Over time, these fantasies gradually morphed into my current practice where I inscribe my own stories into the wood. While working with this material, I picture my own feelings and memories spilling out of me and into the objects I make, like crating my own collection of non-image-based family photo albums. In the end, these wood sculptures become an archive of me—of my ancestors, Finally, I find that similar to contemporary African-American artists like Sam Gilliam who “privileged the process of making or assembling over final compositional form,” I too am more interested in the journey of discovery than I am with actual answers. My process often involves gathering wood that’s been disposed of and forgotten. I intuitively cut it up on the bandsaw and reassemble the fragments. Following the natural rhythm of the grain, I allow instinct to guide my hands. I experience a sense of freedom, akin to playing jazz music, through artmaking. Despite being relatively new to woodworking, my connection with the material felt immediate and inherent. With knowledge of my grandfather having worked as a carpenter, I consider this a form of ancestral recall—an inherited memory, where knowledge and culture are innately passed down through generations.

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