you’re being dramatic ...

I knew when I found the carpet, that at some point, the work would change. Dad would pass. And I wasn’t sure what that would be or how the transition would happen. It happened at my niece’s wedding.

As little girls, Disney tells us we are princesses. We believe in fairy tales. I’m a sucker for a rom-com, even though I know that’s not how life really works. Three months after Dad passed, when my brother-in-law walked my oldest niece down the aisle I realized I’ll never get to have that. That was something that I didn’t know I wanted because it was just a given. My dad would walk me down the aisle if I got married. But now he can’t. And there are so many other things in life that I just took as fact, that I expected to happen because they are supposed to happen, but can’t, now that he’s gone.

Fairy tales always end with the princess marrying the prince. So, I created a wedding dress, re-imagined using the colors and style of his Marlboro Special Selects pack. It was tufted, a call back to the original green carpet, and included details / text specific to my family.

In the fall, during the graduate installation class, we were to create work that responded to the space in which the work would be installed. The Telephone Answering Service in downtown Lafayette was a tar-covered smelly mess of a space where the workers chain-smoked all day, every day for years on end. It was perfect. I placed the pristine white dress at the door leading from one room to the next. You couldn’t view the rest of the show unless you stepped on the carpet, tracking dirt and grime across it. In essence, ruining the art. It was uncomfortable, and if you watch the first hour of the installation, you’ll see it took a while for anyone to do it ... but eventually, people forgot that it was there, walking back and forth, standing on it to chat, changing the meaning of what the piece was and is.