For Holding Patterns: Objects in Action, I explored how the desire to touch, a sense commonly associated with intimacy, can paradoxically engender a psychological distance. Pinched surfaces on "The Brides Stripped Bare Series" record the process of manufacture and invite the viewer's touch. However, numerous "handles" act as cages around the pieces and prevent contact. This limbo of frustrated desire I described through images of circling, floating, and waiting to land but going nowhere. I wanted to reference the tactility of these metaphors, of being held in the suspension as a physical and psychological condition, with these vessels.

 

A counterpoint to the objects in the Holding Patterns show was “Pocket Lady,” a performance that occurred during the opening.  40 people were allowed to choose and reach into it one pocket of an anonymous woman’s red velvet dress.  This intrusion into the space of a stranger, something rarely allowed, briefly breached the common barrier between desire and distance. The dress with its hidden recesses and objects--each of which related to the theme of holding patterns--was a tactile sculpture on this single evening. 

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Finally, the photos comprise a series called "Holding Patterns". The two shown here are Minnesota Midway and San Sebastion, Spain from 1999.