In the past I have manipulated radar imagery of storm systems to serve as a stand-in for depression, heartache, or any other emotive synonym. My current works merge these representations of digital weather radar with photographs of the late singer Karen Carpenter, the Designing Women character Julia Sugarbaker, my Mother, and me.

The attachment to Karen Carpenter and Julia Sugarbaker is derived from their conflicting roles concerning celebrity and real-life person. Karen Carpenter was one half of the 1970’s easy-pop duo, Carpenters. She was a revered performer with a beautiful voice that so ironically sang heartbreaking hits year after year. Originally a drummer, she was persuaded to come out from behind her comforting drum set and take the lead for her band. This began an exposed downward spiral into her extreme weight loss and a battle with Anorexia Nervosa. Karen died from complications due to the disease in 1983 at the age of 32, and it seems now, in retrospect, that the intention of those songs was always to haunt us. Julia Sugarbaker was the Southern Feminist character on the 1980's sitcom, Designing Women. Known for her poised but stinging rants, she was often in defense of the underdog facing discrimination due to homophobia, racism, and sexism. The actress that played Julia, Dixie Carter, passed away in 2010.

Presently, I am interested in what it means to cover-up or void out a representational image of these specific women, with the same marks that signify the storm. It is as if you can watch something, or someone, becoming a memory. The weather radar provides a sense of pixilated erasure; what WAS has been overtaken and silenced by a seemingly non-objective series of painted marks and colors.

The pop-star sweetheart and spicy, southern feminist character are made relatable in their personal tragedy and human deaths. The way in which all of these brown-haired, brown-eyed women could identify with and guide each other is what drives the work. In my imaginary world, all four women are completely interchangeable.