The Archive of Rag and Bone begins with skin as a basic human commonality. The collection is a work in progress, always evolving as a branch of my studio practice and an ongoing study of the relationship between body and memory.

It builds a layered portraiture. Digital photographs document scarring from traumatic injury. The portraits then become garments rendered in Tyvek onto which each scar is embroidered. The portraits mark a specific point in time and geography as well as a specific location on the body. In exhibition, there are accompanying objects in charcoal, mother of pearl and silver that relate to physical experience and traces of interaction. 

The collection includes jewelry objects that combine navigation of the body’s topography and the landscape of personal experience.

I focus on the body as a location for personal history and intimate memory; skin as a boundary and the repair marks of scars as self-identification and a kind of a priori jewelry. The body is a connector between the outward projection of personal adornment and the inward projection of memory, and so the skin, our envelope, becomes the boundary.