beginning 1.1.11

Migrating Sisters, 4x2x2" Racu fired clay

My sister and I immigrated to the States as children in 1986 from what was then communist Czechoslovakia. The expressions are taken from the moment at the airport right before our departure sitting on top of a pile of six suitcases. The piece Migrating Sisters speaks of instability. At the same time, we have each other to lean on and have learned throughout our experience that ‘home’ is just that, the support. This touching has been a part of my artistic practice ever since.

-at 33 I have returned for a yearlong art sabbatical to the country of my birth but one I had not resided in since I was a child. (My mother was the same age when we emigrated from then communist Czechoslovakia in ’86.) It feels like a poignant return on many levels.

-the history is overwhelming both public and private- communist, early modern sculptures supporting heterosexual family and work values line public squares. I find personal postcards and scraps of my grandmother’s past throughout her one bedroom apartment which I reside in. I will be delving into this personal history and documenting my grandmother’s items. (I am reminded of Leslie’s work from the Hooligan class.)

-I am reconstructing a home both literally and figuratively. With our migration I have never had attributed home to a space, place or country. (I more or less carried the notions of ‘home’ within me.) And yet now returning, I am reminded of the first smells and tastes I had known and attributed to the only home I knew as a child, those of the Czech Republic.