Concave-Convex

The state of my arms has had a profoundly adverse and unjust effect on my daily life. They are covered in old self-harm scars that when visible, always draw unsolicited negative attention or pity. I am constantly defined by my past as I fight to move on. I am not to be pitied. Women who have cut themselves are not to be pitied. We wish to be understood. We wish to leave our scars unconcealed without fear of repulsion and judgement. Concave-Convex reframes how self-harm scars are perceived by others, and myself.

The process of making Concave-Convex was a therapeutic means of recontextualizing my relationship to my body through a feminist framework. I mirrored the compulsive act of cutting through a repeated process -making molds of shapes that resemble my scars and re-casting them hundreds of times. The repeated conversions of the concave mold creating convex casts also mirrors the process of hollow cuts healing to raised scars. This process converted the compulsion to cut into a compulsion to create: a way to heal through making.

Each time I removed a scar from its mold, modified it, fired it, glazed it, fired it again, it was reborn into a new context. Glazes of various colors were poured over and flicked onto each shape, making every outcome unique as the glazes reacted with each other differently during the kiln firing. The scars have been transformed from plain, static tissues to large, vivid entities that command the space they are in. They direct the viewer into an acceptance of the revealed wounds we bare and ask to join in colorful celebration.  

Body image is a source of insecurity for many women. Women’s bodies are always under critique and picked apart for not fitting a certain ideal. Women are more than their bodies. I am more than my body. The scars are enlarged and attached to the wall to be noticed, to be normalized, and to be seen in a new context that I choose, rather than one that is chosen for me and for all women with scars. This process is a way for me to reclaim and take control of the narrative of my trauma, to own my body under a new context that is positive and reconciled.

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