I found the statement I wrote for "The Story" and "Thesis Series". Here it is.
______________________________
For a long time now, I've had recurring fantasies of something extremely traumatic happening to me or my loved ones--the pleasure however, coming from imagining the emotional period following the event, where I was socially justified in any response. I would be free to have over the top, indulgent, emotional outbursts where all I'd have to think about was myself. Such irrational, satisfyingly numbing cathartic releases are just not acceptable after a certain age. This fantasy intersects strangely with my relationship with certain friends--something horrible did happen to a loved one, but neither of us really was afforded that emotional period. I certainly didn't, but even they still went through the daily motions, their life unfolding at the correct pace. Few people outside our inner circle knew anything was off.
This (within the context of my parents divorcing, questioning my upbringing, my middle class childhood, etc cliches) started me on thoughts about the Christian concept of "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" and the recurrent reminder that it could always be worse--what have I got to complain about? Also, looking at myself and friends' recent bad experiences spurred the question of whether we're ever prepared for life. Or is it that to become self aware/grow up/understand life we have to go through something awful? My friends and I are all exponentially more mature than a year ago, when all these things happened. Would we have maintained a childish mentality otherwise? And when is the cutoff for adulthood? How long is our behavior excusable as a child's mistake and when do we become truly culpable?
Stories, since my dad would read to us or make them up as he went, have always been big to my sisters and I. Though now that we're older, they've changed. While we still love Disney and all the ones from our childhood, we also know they're completely unrecognizable from the original. But we love both the tale we grew up on and the perspective we've gotten with age and reading. It makes me wonder how many stories my parents told me. As a cliched angsty teen with nothing to really complain about, I loved escapism through stories, where things happened. There was trauma, catharsis, costumes, and intrigue--but structure. Even when it was sad, it all made sense in a way life never could.
So my work is putting a visual to that ambiguous line through manipulated imagery of objects that, for me, point to a state of naivete but also understanding. Of seeing both ends of the spectrum and wanting to exist somewhere in between instead of having to choose.