Life with a Five Year Old celebrates a fleeting and inspiring moment of love, vulnerability and humor with my son.  Sometimes my child inserts himself into my work, showing me new ways of interacting with my chosen materials of plastics, the video camera, or costumes. While others, my practice influences my experience of motherhood, adding to my understanding of my bond with my child as an accumulation of gestures and co-creation. Life with a Five Year Old offers a glimpse into our shared process of play, performance, and documentation during the pandemic.

Life with a Five Year Old was part of Grizzly Grizzly’s exhibition “Everted Living” at the Center for Visual Research, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA in September 2021.

installation view “Life with a Five Year Old”
Left: “Inside Inside”, Mylar, in water, in round flasks, 14″ x 14″ x 13″
Right: “Corn Popper”, corn popper, clear acrylic, 13″ x 13″ x 24″
Center: Videos (“Corn Popper Deconstruction”, “Inside Inside”, “Box, Triptych”, and “Make Up) loop on 55” screen

Corn Popper
Corn popper, clear acrylic
13″ x 13″ x 27″

Corn Popper Deconstruction
Video, 1:28
Here, we explore the inner workings of the corn popper toy when we take it apart to clean it as part of preparation for building the sculpture, “Corn Popper”.

inside inside
Video, 1:26
I skipped a lot of showers during the lock down. Water Play, mylar.

Box, Triptych
Video, 1:14
Editors: Zach Hill and Diedra Krieger
Left: 5 year old plays in the box;
Right: Mother plays in the box the way 5 year old does;
Center: interactions in the studio

Make Up
Video, :56

My 5 year old surprised me by putting on his own make up and making a video for me requesting me to respond, which I then do. The video closes with an interaction behind the scenes, where he takes video of me putting my make up on.