From Black to Blue Skys and Everything in Between: A Quilted Hallway Installation at the Newport Art Museum
Every so often we notice the sky changing. We see how it shifts from blue to gold to pink to black. We trust that the sky will show us what is coming up on the horizon. These shifts are not unlike the emotional ecosystem of a family. Even when the sky turns black and stormy we trust there will be clear blue waiting for us when it is all over.
In From Black to Blue Skys and Everything in Between the viewer gets go on an emotional journey through a family home. Simultaneously, you experience what its like to transition away from that home environment to find emotional independence. As you walk through the piece one side takes you room by room exposing trauma and triumph. The other side starts in the back yard and goes further and further from the family home into the world. This space both pulls viewer in deeper and distances them at the same time. From Black to Blue Skys creates an actual space for the duality many of us go through when it comes to these relationships.
The bonds of family often make us feel like we have to be all in or all out. From Black to Blue Skys choreographs an experience that forces you exist someplace in between those two choices. Walking that line challenges us to look at familial love and cohabitation from a more complex angle.
*From Black to Blue Skys and Everything in Between was up in the Newport Art Museum from January 23rd to April 24th 2018.
