The challenge I set for myself in creating this installation was finding the right way to express the experiential component of colors in a way that could be understood. I began by painting, and found myself in a process of carefully progressing colors one by one. As each painting was finished, I realized I was using this process as a therapeutic process for myself as well, letting myself be taken by the feelings each color would give. Feelings of melancholy, sadness, joy, excitement, anger, would flow through me like waves as each wave of color would hit the shores of the canvas. I emptied out the sea of my emotions right there, creating my own viewpoint of the ocean of ambiguity. But it was missing something, I was creating this ocean, this massive sea of rough and stormy waters, and it felt unsafe to enter. I needed a lighthouse. A safe haven, a guide through the swells to keep those who sail through from capsizing. I realized this series of paintings I was working on wasn’t just a series of paintings, but part of a larger installation. Some type of physical space was required in order to share this process and experience with others, somewhere to let your guard down and let yourself be hit by the waves. This is the basis of In an Intimate Space.

Life is unpredictable. I find it ironic that one the few constants of life we can rely on is that it is constantly changing. This notion is something that I’ve relied heavily on in helping me process big events or things that have happened within my life, especially so during the past few years which have been particularly difficult. I needed to lean on the constants of life, and the constant that I found was color. Color is a powerful force that both consciously and unconsciously affects us constantly. Color can evoke emotional responses, physical responses, and even memories. Color surrounds and envelops us wherever we may be, and those colors create experiences and feelings unique to every individual. We typically think of senses like smells or sounds of things like perfumes or music that create these types of responses and connections to memories, and I think that the visual sense of color should be considered just as strongly. Color is a constant I hold dear to me. I want to be able to express the embrace of color and how it affects us within my art and architectural practices.

A technical skill I learned for and employed in the making of this work is crochet (though admittedly, very basic crochet). I decided to use only single stitch crochet, as I liked the way the single lines formed by the stitch mimicked the single lines of each color in the color field paintings. I chose yarn to act as the “water” coming down around the umbrella because it’s a material we associate with comfort, like a cozy sweater or a warm blanket, and I wanted to create a space one could physically be inside and feel comfortable to explore their own inner space. Thinking about a cozy, safe, intimate space, I thought of being out on a walk in a heavy rainstorm. Underneath your umbrella, you are safe from the storm, and given a moment in time to listen to the calming sounds of the rain falling, to watch the patterns the water forms as it slips down and around you, to be in an intimate space to weather the storm, inside and out.