COLUMBIA
51" x 18" x 10"
Mixed Media

Not too long ago, I wrote a description on this piece about the first time I came to New York which you can read below:

“Diversity is everywhere, but the first place I really noticed the richness and the delicious 'melting pot' of culture was New York City. You can't even get in an elevator without hearing three different languages. And the food. Oh God, the food is just as diverse as the people. This is one of the reasons I love New York so much. I feel surrounded by the real world around me and I feel free. Walt Whitman, who is one of my favorite poets, sums it up pretty well:

Walt Whitman, who is one of my favorite poets, sums it up pretty well:

"I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt.
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refreshed by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refreshed,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood and was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemmed pipes of steamboats, I looked."

"In his poem, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Whitman extends this grand vision of democracy and brotherly love to all the diverse people of New York. He speaks of solidarity and shared human experience, across distances and generations. He speaks directly to the reader:" Jesse La Tour/A Brief History of American Literature.

I love this assemblage, but ‘Columbia’ is the personification of America. And it wasn’t until after two brutal elections, a devastating global pandemic and women being thrown head first onto a deadly battleground of survival, I decided to add the Boxing Gloves. As a creative dreamer who was seeing New York through the lens of an artist and the beautiful words of a poet, I soon realized that Freedom, Diversity and Human Rights, even in progressive areas, are often fragile and never free. And it’s the responsibility of every generation to fight to keep them.

‘Columbia’ consists of a vintage American Flag hand-sewn inside steel antique dress form. Wood, cast iron, epoxy putty, steel, paint and leather