Emotional Receptacles

What inspired Offer Me Anything?

Offer Me Anything explores how people act as emotional accommodators. In this piece, I wanted to interact with viewers. I invited people to write down anything weighing on them and then deposit those notes into the vessels I created. The viewer gets to walk away feeling lighter.

Where was this piece on display?

I took the [above] photo in a building near my school, where they let me create an installation. A bunch of my friends participated in that installation. Then it was also on display in an arts exhibition I did called Think Nothing of It, which was a senior year art exhibit where we created interactive works.

What was your working process?

I made these three vessel structures quickly, gathering materials I found in my house and around my school and putting them together. I started out with one of my mom’s sweaters that she was planning to give away. I cut that up and quilted it together with other materials like my old clothes or pages from childhood books. As I started working with sentimental materials, I came to this idea of taking something that has a past life that is familiar to me and abstracting it into an alien organic form.

What advice do you have for young artists like yourself?

Find people who are interested in what you’re interested in. The art-making process—the solitude of it—is important. The community part often gets overlooked, especially with visual artists who work independently sometimes.