A diary simply resting on a table easily becomes a charged object that rouses curiosity, fear, desire, and even anger in a person who is not the rightful owner. But a diary is much more than an object that contains (quells? alleviates? insists upon?) the emotional surges and daily quotidian of the keeper. A diary, as a practice, moves beyond the therapeutic and in to the realm of a dedicated life’s work. A diary is a land in and of itself. A land that is made and re-made daily. It is ever-changing, always under construction, always in a state of Becoming. It is within this hot, haunted, often misunderstood, territory of the diary that my art practice begins.

Taking text from my own hand-written diary and using the details of my biographical reality, I explore the nature of identity construction and personal signification. The dark personal psychology and family details which are normally hidden safely away inside the covers of the diary are presented as signs. These signs, fragmented and removed from their original context, insist upon the malleability of reality based on perception, proximity, and legibility. Not all signs are written in a clear script or appear the way we are trained to expect. They can take the form of a sweater and present the body as a billboard. They can take the form of a drawing, be tacked to a wall, and stake the outline of a deep, hidden reality. But regardless of form, I am interested in this charting out of attraction and fear as a means of mapping identity. I gather clues, fragments, snippets of phrases. I make uncomfortable, ambiguous signs that might even lead me, the sign maker, down a perilous road. Identity is made and re-made.