Adoptee Art, Family Patterns

How the Light Gets In, SFMOMA Artist's Gallery, Opening July 19, 2014

It is interesting how things come about.

I finished a project that was born at Creative Live, a place for creatives to learn business and craft. During my first course in the live studio audience in San Francisco, I met Ann Rea. Later, Ann taught a great course called Make Art Make Money which was a paradigm shift for me. Working with Ann brought the idea of making art for adoptees, but I did not know how to bring my plant pattern work together with that.

The series created for this show is a first try at bringing adoption and plant patterns together.  The installation will be a part of a group show at SFMOMA Artist's Gallery in San Francisco. It is a photographic series printed on fabric and strung as prayer flags.

An invitation: If you can make it to the show there is a place to write a prayer, and they will hang in my garden after the show. If you are unable to attend write a prayer or wish for healing for yourself or another and enter it in the comment section.

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About Family Patterns

Family Patterns shows people from my birth and adoptive families, and photos of me and my son. There is an intersection that holds me at the center; the past and future generation behind and in front of me.

Family Patterns is an integration of the art from Patterns of Growth and a meditation on family, origin, and transformation.

I was adopted at 9 months of age and found my birth mother at age 18. In 2003 I created a series entitled Hold Me, that centered around my adoption and the feelings of displacement surrounding it.

Family Patterns shows people from my birth and adoptive families, and photos of me and my son. There is an intersection that holds me at the center; the past and future generation behind and in front of me. I am suspended in the present and time converges in me. I see how far I have come in accepting and integrating the seen and unseen patterns of lineage on me as an individual and now, as a mother.

I decided to transform the images into prayer flags because I wanted to make tangible the benefits of reflection and growth, and to offer the love I received back to the universe and to others.

The Details

Show Opening
Saturday July 19, 2014
3 to 5 pm

Show Runs
July 19 - August 21, 2014
Gallery Open:

Address
Building A,
Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123