
I'm the Visual and Literary Arts Coordinator for the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, where I wear many hats. I have the opportunity to make acquaintance with the artists we exhibit and facilitate their shows, assist in the preservation and protection of our collection, aid our literary resident organizations make connections between the Foundation and one another, and collaborate with the Director of Visual and Literary Infrastructure on various (exciting!) plans and projects.
As an artist, I go by the name Wryn. I see myself as an experimental multi-media artist fueled by the wonder, awe, and shock of humanity. I received formal training in both architecture and archaeology, and subsequently decided neither field was right for me. However, my work remains heavily influenced by both subjects. Traces of my interest in architecture can be found mostly in the gallery and how I curate my work within a certain space. The impact of archaeology on my work is more overt, as my work oftentimes includes artifacts of my past or present. These personal artifacts are both mentally and physically significant to me. Not only do they represent the idea of a memory, but I also believe that any item that has (had) significance to another human being is able to store some of that person’s energy. This is the object’s memory. No one will ever know the complete story of the object’s memory, but it can be felt. What makes a relic, ancient tool, and hopefully my personal artifacts so captivating is the connection we can make today with the individual it was important to at the time of its creation. To me, this is basic human connection. We can begin to understand what someone else once understood just by looking at and imagining how we would use an item--how it would have been important to us and how it might have been important to them. While it is important to feel this connection over centuries, my work focuses on trying to make this connection over lengths of time as small as days, months, and years. I hope that by being brutally honest and vulnerable with my present and past experience through the art I make, the artifacts I bring into it, and the space I create with it, I will make a connection with the viewer. In turn, through this connection, the viewer is asked to question their experience as a human, ideally taking away feelings of understanding, solidarity, and empathy.