Empty Window

What is the information needed.

Last year I made a piece for a group show at Tiger Strikes Asteroid called “No Take-backs”. The premise was to trade objects with another member of my artist collective and then create artwork using that object as a point of departure. My partner, the artist Eugenio Salas, granted me temporary use of a large sheet of thick, pliable plastic. I was depleted from months of hope and grief and no money and wanted to make something fast and instinctual. I decided to try out monotyping for the first time, using the plastic as a base to making fast and sloppy gestures with ink. I made textures and patterns, hash marks and windows, and the occasional cat. I borrowed the ink I used, and the paper was free. The term used in the arts is typically, “found materials” but this paper was addressed and hand-delivered to me. I used government forms that I had. Stacks of forms sent to collect information about my income, my employment, my housing, my water use, my housemates, my disability, my medication, my gender, my name, my sexuality, my address, and on and on and on.

all photos are details of “Empty Window”, 8’ x 1’, woven monotypes on found paper, 2024

I am, as we all are in America, monitored by the government. My household, along with approximately 12.6% of the population receive SNAP (food stamps), as well as Medicaid along with 80 million others. To receive these benefits we must constantly report our information.

My cat Omar would often sit in the front window of my house. He would hear me coming home and sometimes from down the block he would begin to meow to me, “Come home!” Walking up the street to an empty window after his death was very difficult.

These forms are bizarre and insistent and sometimes contradictory and confusing. Included also were forms for a passport application- I would often leave windows empty, scared that I would answer wrong and not receive necessary documents, or money for food, or lose my access to medication. My safety, security, and survival are so dependent on filling those windows in the exact right way.

I have recently received a rarified gift, an award from the Leeway Foundation. I was one of twelve artists in Philadelphia to receive this gift this year. I am incredibly grateful, and I realize I need to work through some feelings I’m having.

I have decided to put the more vulnerable parts of this essay behind a paywall - if this is the first time you’re seeing this, it’s because almost all of my posts are free. With this wall, I’m asking for some mutual buy-in to enter inside my mind, and if you look, I’ve even given you a key.