SAM MAKES A FACE FOR FEAR AND FAITH

Bre: What does fear look like to you, and how does this tie into your project for Issue 4?

Sam: [My piece] is about the fear of identity/rejection. It’s centered on queerness, religion, and growing up in the South and how those [elements] intermix and intermingle, making it a really beautiful but also really frightening experience because a lot of those things don't necessarily coincide. This fear physically manifests in this form that I've made, that contains a face with multiple features. It translates this idea of being a lot of different versions of yourself that you want to honor, but [being unsure of] how to do that, and therefore being scared of how those different parts of yourself are going to be perceived by the people you love.

B: If fear were a tangible material like clay, what would the texture be like? How would you work with it?

S: I think that it would be this phase of clay called “bone dry,” which is after you’ve made something, it’s set out for a while, and right before it gets fired. It’s the most vulnerable state that the clay can be in. Whenever damage occurs, it’s almost irreversible because you can’t get the clay wet again to fix it. This relates to this idea of irreversible problems or cracking, or this weird intermediate phase of where you have to be careful. It reminds me of walking on eggshells, or the idea that things could go wrong at any moment.

B: The vessels in your artwork are castings made of your face. Was this your first time doing life casts? Have you done this to others? What did you enjoy most about this process?

S: Yeah! The cast that I did for this was my first one! In hindsight, I'm kind of like, “Oh, I probably should have known a little bit more about the process.” There was a lot of trial and error, and there were aspects of it that didn't really work the way that I wanted it to, which have translated into some modifications. What I learned from the experience was how cathartic it was to be so physically involved in making a piece. I use my hands all the time in sculpture, but to have my face completely coated in plaster, and also the experience of having my senses stripped, was really interesting. I ended up recruiting a friend of mine to help me because I didn't want to be alone whenever I was completely covering my face. So that was an interesting experience to be vulnerable, and relying on another person to make sure that I didn't suffocate. I had some extra materials so I ended up making one of her as well, mine got a little like fucked up in the whole process, so I'm glad to have hers as a little reminder of what we did.

B: Your piece is fashioned after “biblical vessels”. Has religious iconography always influenced your work and life?

S: I wanted to tie religion to this project because it felt like [it was something I had to] confront. I grew up super religious, very Baptist with a hint of Pentecostal on my maternal grandmother's side. This experience of realizing my queer identity, but also feeling really connected to my religious identity, was something that I wanted to honor. In a lot of art, it's really easy to completely reject religion and spirituality. For a long time I did, and my relationship with that is still tumultuous, but it was my way of confronting while also recognizing that it's still a very deeply ingrained part of who I am and how I came to be this way. I wanted to connect the fear, but also the familiarity of that.

The religious imagery specifically I was drawn to, because there's just so much inspiration that I could take from, and the image that I was always going back to, is these paintings where it's a depiction of the Trinity through a portrait of Jesus, but he's got three faces that are interconnected. When I saw that, that's when I started to work on this idea of wanting faces on the pot. As I've said, it's evolved from that. At first, it was going to be almost an exact replica using my face, but the more I started working on it, the more I felt I wanted there to be less unity in those faces. To me, that expressed this experience of feeling disconnected. That was my main inspiration as far as religion, and then I did some research on biblical-era vessels. The shape of the pot itself is also supposed to be akin to an oil transportation type of vessel, that would’ve been used in biblical times. I wanted each piece to have a little bit of a backstory behind it so that it could all stay interconnected.

B: If the faces on your vessel could speak, what would they say?

S: I would like to think that they’d all say something different. I feel like this piece is so much about all of these other facets of yourself and who they are, what journey they’re on, and how fully realized they are …or maybe the lack of being fully realized. Some would discuss their childhood and growing up experiences, while others would explore being a young adult and redefine their relationship with religion and spirituality. And then some would talk about queerness and that being a different kind of religion or experience. Though I think they would all say something about still being the same person, even though each one brings a different side to the table.

B: Is there anything you wish people to know about before delving into this artwork, and what would you like their takeaway to be?

S: I think the main thing to know in receiving the work is that you may be afraid to be all of these different versions of yourself, but I hope that the viewer will find a little bit of solace in that all of us have this the same confusion, and it feels just as disjointed and dysregulating for everybody. The scary part is that maybe there's no answer, but in that, I hope that there's a connection there. There's this quote that I love:

“Sometimes the fear does not subside, and so you must do so afraid,”

and I feel like that's a pretty poignant message for this whole theme of fear. I've connected it a lot to this piece, and in working on it, I've been able to be afraid and start to be comfortable with the fear. Maybe the fear is starting to take on this new identity, as well as I'm taking on new identities.

You can see Samantha's full final project by purchasing 04: The Identity Issue.