I become living clay and blur the line between myself and my art by becoming a clay sculpture myself. I cover myself and then clean off the clay slip, each time sculpting myself anew. CLAY BODIES is about exploring the boundary between a body and art, and is designed to question and challenge that distinction. It is about materiality, process, creation, and immersion. It is about the performance itself as well as the documentation and remnants of the work created during the piece. Most art is seen as merely a product of the artistic process, when in fact each artist makes work that is essentially a piece of themselves.

          The performances are done by mixing clay slip, isolating specific clay materials, and covering myself in that slip by dipping, submersing, pouring, painting, etc. I then perform tasks while covered: sitting in a chair as the clay dries and cracks, cleaning the mess made by the pouring, painting a canvas and myself simultaneously, using my body to imprint upon canvases/ paper/ walls/ surroundings/ others, throwing pots and large vessels, decorating vessels, or interacting with an audience and holding conversations. The pieces I interact with during the performance are preserved and displayed alongside photo documentation. I started these performances as a desire to immerse myself in my work, both literally and figuratively. Each performance is an exploration of the body as clay, the body in clay, and embodying art. This series is a deep inquiry designed to blur that line between the body of the artist and their body of work, and challenge the notion that art is physically separate from the self of the artist.