Thinking with your hands…continued

 I worked for a jewelry company for a while, doing all production work-just repetitive making …it was great, my mind could wonder but I still had the enjoyment and challenge of working with my hands. I feel that “just making” is a crucial part of art practice-sometimes the most amazing ideas/results come about from turning your brain off and letting your instincts or you hands guide you. I feel that when I work with my hands I am more sensitive to the materials in front of me and come to ways of working that I would never have thought of if I was just thinking about how I was going to execute a piece of work.

While I was beginning to taxidermy mice I ended up with a couple that I had punctured or tore through the skins-we’re talking very large holes…and without really planning it out I just started sewing these holes up, but because they were so big, I began to notice how it unnaturally deformed the mouse’s figure/body. This led me to continue exploring distorting their shapes until I arrived at the “mouse pearl”. Yeah Happy Accidents!!