Secrets Through Art: A Note from the Artist

In Art as Process, we are assigned open-ended projects related to a theme or task. This week’s was secrets. We talked about our relationship to secrets—ours, others’, if we are good at keeping them or not. The class was given a spread of all different mediums to use in their work. Secrets have a seductive quality—they tend to be “juicy.” Maybe having one is easier than keeping one, though. And maybe telling one person is easier than being the one person that is told. I think lips are a good symbol of secrets—they represent this seductive quality as well as the way secrets are transferred. While I was making this piece, I was cutting holes in the cardboard to form the windowpane, and I didn’t notice that my mesh screen was underneath. My knife accidentally cut a hole in the mesh, which prompted my idea of having various scraps pour from the mouth out through the window. This reminded me how, often, secrets aren’t spilled intentionally, nor created intentionally. Despite this, we love to have them, and maybe we also love to spill them. Perhaps, the fabric coming from the lips can be perceived as coming from the outside, into the window, representing the creation of secrets and how they don’t remain secret for long.