Personification of Inanimate Objects
From childhood I have personified things: sticks and stones and trash and toys. I knew the secret of these objects, when no one pays attention these things live out their own lives. They laugh and cry, sing and dance, and love and have heartbreak. I’ve spent so much of my adult life trying to deny this truth about these banal objects. I’ve told myself that my personification of objects is unhealthy, that it’s irrational. But, this body of work is me at play. I felt a twinge of guilt, that I was doing something bad and indulgent. I insist that these are portraits; there is a character and soul inside of these things, personalities that only I can see. This is my gift, I can draw out the feelings of things, tease them to life by looking at them in just the right way. By taking these intimate portraits of these objects, I give them the chance they always wanted: to express the beauty inside of themselves. This is an exploration of innocence: of myself as a child and of the simple character and beauty lurking in the unseen moments and lives of these hackneyed objects.
