Works of art created on a journey of healing and wellness.
Self-portrait of a developing seed
This piece was created over a 10 week period. The border was created from oracle cards that were pulled daily. The drawings were done using traditional Asian techniques that were updated through digital creation. Each frame was hand-drawn by recreating historical Korean patterns. All pieces were created on my iPad using Procreate and my Apple Pencil.
Liberation of a lived experience
Zine created using traditional Korean book-making techniques on mulberry paper and printable sticker paper.
Mobile
Created from twine, yarn, dried and pressed leaves, and wooden cutouts, this piece demonstrates the interconnectedness between disparate ideas.
Digital Identity Quilt
Contributors: Angela Palmer-Titcomb, Madeline Watson, Justine Mastin, Lily Gonzalez, Maria Mejia, Nancy Lemmon
Artist Statement
Each week over the span of five weeks, I spent time co-arting with a different individual who knows me personally. During each co-arting session, we met for one hour and followed the same prompt: within a square, create a visual depiction of something that people should know about you but may not. Each person chose to create their square differently, through collage, drawing, or digital collage. My squares were created using Korean hanji paper and Japanese washi tape mounted on a square birch woodblock as a form of homage to Korean American artists Jeong-Han and Choon-Hyang who make fine art from hanji that they create after personally harvesting the bark of the dak tree during trips to Korea. I then took a high resolution photo of each square and digitally knit them together to create a digital quilt. Creating a good quilt means adding pieces as they fit together, not making each piece fit. I left open spaces in the quilt for the pieces that are still to come, a metaphor for the pieces of ourselves that are in constant development. With Procreate and my Apple pencil, I added cotton texture to the blank spots, showing there is backing there, but a square still needs to be filled in. I then added stitches along the seams of each square and added a quilting pattern across the top, showing continuity even though there are pieces missing.
This project was taken on as a test for my dissertation research, in which I plan on having co-arting sessions with participants and determining if engagement with heritage crafts can lead to increased overall sense of wellbeing. An interesting finding in these sessions was that four out of the five contributors mentioned family or ancestors as an inspiration for a part of their identity squares. To me, this means that this is a perfect art engagement for my dissertation research and have decided that these identity squares will be planned as the first engagement with my research participants.
The identity squares I created were all abstract, varying from the figurative squares of the other participants. As I was creating each square, I worked with pieces of hanji and washi that called to me in that moment. Two of my squares represent the dichotomy of my being; I can be feminine yet strong as depicted by the purple and white square while the midnight and pink square emphasizes the darkness of my struggles with mental health while also emphasizing the importance of this divergence from the norm through the gold leaf. The navy piece embodies my shadow self; the self that I have embraced over time but in the past, forced to remain hidden. The white and tan square emphasizes my sometimes-fraught relationship with nature. The teal and gray square symbolizes the balance I try to find between structure and flow. After the completion of each square, I was surprised by how much each of these squares spoke to me about an aspect of my personal identity. I did not make each one thinking about my identity and it was not until after the creation, that I could see the tie to who I am. It is interesting to me that I can see the transformation that I am currently and have been undergoing over the past several months; of finding comfort in freedom and ownership of all aspects of myself instead of choosing to mask the aspects that others or I may find uncomfortable.
The Oracle
