Breathe. Breathe again, it helps to focus, keep us alive. It gives us space. Imagine if we could have space in between the molecules that make us who we are. When I was in Japan, a fellow artist equated the empty space in Japanese art with the empty space that Japanese people keep in between each other. This is the space of acknowledgement and respect. Maintaining that space says “I see you, you are your own being, and me I am my own being”: acknowledgement and respect.

The empty space I tried to incorporate in between the “bits” of each of the figures in “String Theory” are a way of physically and visually expressing the physics behind these 2 theories.

The figures represented by “bits of pulp” stuck to strings are a tightrope walker and a flute player. These 2 figures represent two dynamics in personalities of many relationships. The tightrope walker is the risk-taker, imagining the impossible, defying gravity, creating something new, exploring the unknown. The flute player is grounded, supported by the earth, safe, but making beautiful music which supports the tight-rope walker while she balances on a thread at dizzying heights off to the unknown. Relationships where each person periodically trades positions are the luckiest.

Paper is the most vulnerable, strongest material I know of, other than skin. All the works in this installation are fibers of organic materials, some with photographs wome with seaweed pulps, some with a bamboo structure. The photographic images were taken in Japan while I was there studying traditional papermaking techniques and soaking up the culture. Just like a hydrophilic fiber soaks up water.