There you will find a series of handmade plates scattered across the terrain. Each piece is site-specific and the inclusion of cardinal directions is related to my own experiences with those directions, as it was my primary area of exploration having grown up on the West Coast. The plates were thrown on the potter's wheel with clay I harvested myself when I was a live-in worker at an orchard farm in Mendocino called “Wild Ponies Orchard”. I painted free-flow doodles of clouds, dandelions, and sunflowers in white underglaze. Some of the plates I left blank to allow the raw, dark terracotta color to speak for itself, I cold finished some of them by drawing cardinal directions with a solidified white paint stick.
More importantly, while this work concerns my personal relationship to the Cardinal Directions, one of the plates points to the Cardinal East and relates to the current events going on in the “Middle East” which is the equivalent of saying “the space between Arabia and India” (site). While I feel extremely ignorant towards the conflict happening in Palestine, still I find it important to give aid and attention towards fighting against war and genocide…” Keep pointing the mic and camera to face the Middle East and the Wider Arabic World…
A little about the Albany Bulb…
Where it stands the Bulb, called that by the current inhabitants of the Bay Area, was originally non-existent as “Land” but a shallow water and marshland of the Bay. In the last one hundred years it has been built out using dynamited rock and industrial waste from the surrounding cities and contracts with the railroad (site). The area, owned by the City of Alameda, was then used as an industrial waste facility which operated until the late 1980s. A causeway, built from conglomerated ruins of land, buildings, and everything between leads people to “the bulb”, a man-made peninsula of industry waste, which is visible in certain areas when visiting as it is now a park enjoyed by many people with local artwork and a strong tie in the community of the Bay.