Deconstructed Teapots

Human beings seem to need sacred objects. Across all cultures and ages, we surround ourselves and our families with amulets. We begin collecting them before we are born, passed down to us from our ancestors, and in our lifetime we continue to gather these relics to pass down to our descendants. We care for them dearly. We endow them with power. We treasure them and mourn their loss when it occurs. Every family dwelling becomes a unique museum of life.  From dishes and cutlery to revered books, objects, and photographs, the spirit of our lives and families is shaped by our sacred artifacts. There is an altar in every dwelling, whether we realize it or not, where the most venerated of our things live.

For immigrants, this natural human practice is interrupted, modified, melded and mangled into a new transformative process. Objects are moved across oceans and continents, in pockets and bags and boxes and bras and shirts, around necks and fingers, in books and in wallets. They are kept close for safety, trembled over. Some are lost, stolen, or broken. Pieces of family hearths become even more precious in the new world, wherever that is – as they mix into the tapestry of the objects of the new life. They, too, become a part of the family story. A passed-down table, a found chair, a precious gift, a first purchase. Memories of old and new, often conflicting, often incompatible. Honoring roots while growing new branches. Sublimated sadness, hope, loss, yearning, and dreams.

This piece, called Deconstructed Teapots 1, is about the shared immigrant experience of constantly piecing together a hearth from the fragments of our scattered lives. The sacred objects of our homes and cultures, inevitably deconstructed and transformed, often in shards, intermix with our new life and form new objects, rituals, and ways of life. It is an inner state, a constant conflict between preservation and transformation. A precious and painful process of finding and retrieving the sanctity of our roots as we live in new worlds.

This piece is currently on show at G-Town Arts, in Georgetown, CT.  Stop by if you’re around!

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