Good Morning/Mourning America - Gallery 440

August 21-28,2025

Good Morning/Mourning America is a multimedia exhibition born from the tension, heartbreak, and hope of our current cultural and political moment. Using only the exhibition’s title as a prompt, Texas-based artists will contribute works of visual art, music, and writing that reflect our fractured realities and shared humanity. Through powerful expression, a curated collection, panel discussion, and digital catalog, this project aims to stir reflection, spark dialogue, and remind us that even in division, connection is possible. https://gallery440.com/good-morning-mourning

When I first learned I was invited to create work for the exhibition the prompt, Good Morning/Mourning America, I immediately thought about how mourning lives alongside the rhythms of our daily lives—quietly woven into the fabric of who we are and how we carry on. My small collage, Jenny, is born from this tension: the weight of loss balanced against the persistence of memory and creation.

This piece began during my MFA thesis, a time of deep experimentation with materials as I investigated themes of generational change, femininity, home, family, and the roles women inhabit. The process left me with piles of scraps—fragments of fabric and material that felt unfinished, unresolved. A few weeks before my graduation, my mentor and professor, the person who challenged, inspired, and championed my work, passed away unexpectedly. Those scraps suddenly transformed into something more: a physical reminder of her presence and now her absence.

I kept those materials untouched, unable to part with them yet unsure how to give them form. This exhibition’s theme of mourning opened the path. In creating Jenny, I found a way to honor the memory, transforming remnants of my past practice into a new gesture of remembrance and resilience. What once felt like discarded fragments now carry forward her memory.