Attrition

1. The wearing away of rocks as they bounce along the riverbed or knock against each other becoming more rounded.

2. (In scholastic theology) sorrow, but not contrition, for sin.

3. Gradual loss.

This triptych installation grew out the months immediately after my stepfather’s death. The tiny Wyoming town where Gerald lived and died serves as a starting point for this exploration of loss. Using water from the river where his ashes were scattered, red earth from the area, and casts of found fragments, railroad stakes, and body parts of myself and friends, this triptych abstracts and blends the religious (crucifixion, stained glass, holy water) and secular (cast off shards of daily life, natural materials) in order to question the relationship between the sacred and the mundane; specifically, how they contribute to our experience of loss. What is hallowed ground? Does the physical evidence of our daily lives contain the sacred, or contaminate it? How do people and things slip away, and how are they remembered? This space was intended to serve as a site of contemplation for these universal questions, while also starting to capture the intensely personal nature of the place, experience, and people.