''Place Settings'' concrete, epsom salt, rust, six 15'' x 20'' x 2.5'' concrete slabs, 2010
The place settings (knife, fork, spoon, plate and cup rings) are created as shallow imprints embedded within the concrete surface. The fragile, yet firmly affixed crystal formations filling the impressions continue to grow and alter as they age, referencing the lingering and compounding conscious and subconscious aspects of familial influence, memory, and expectations of domesticated life, as well as the controlled conditions necessary for development. Each type of crystal has a molecular pattern that is unalterable, but also different from any other type of crystal, which I parallel to genetic inheritance and behavioral patterns created within family units. The physical weightiness of the works invoke feelings of burden and the anthropological discovery of the family dinner table as a fossil from times past that may serve as a desired, unwelcome, or lost mold for the future.
