Military spouses relocate every 2-3 years, often moving across cities, states, and countries. As a 20-year military spouse, I create drawings and paintings that reflect this constant state of transience or “being between.”  Spouses, living in a continuous liminal state, never know where their next move will take them and what awaits them there.   

 My work explores these themes through a process similar to military life: the chaotic and relentless cycle of breaking down and starting over. I utilize line to draw and redefine figures, while spray paint, gouache, and oil paint are used to destabilize them.  This is a visual representation of the disruptive mechanisms that shape their lives.  I repeat multiple times, creating a surface similar to a palimpsest; layered, unfinished, revealing traces of unresolved or previously drawn figures. I believe that, as military spouses repeatedly start over, they often find themselves caught between.

 

It is difficult to reach one’s full potential when one lives in a liminal state.