I wish I Could Take Them With Me

Like Felix Gonzalez-Torrez’s piece [Untitled (Portrait of Ross)], (http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/object?id=152961 a portrait in which he exactly equaled Ross’s body weight in individually wrapped candies… the viewer is encouraged to take a piece of Ross at each exhibit and Ross is continuously replentished), this piece is an individual portrait of 6 people I love. This piece is interactive like Torrez’s but involves the sense of scent to portray each person rather than taste or color. Each person is someone who I love but am forced to be separated from for long periods at a time and thus miss them all often. I find myself attaching to scent memories most often. Each person was asked to send me a white shirt that had been worn. Each shirt was unique in style and scent but was uniformly white, symbolizing their unique identities to me but their shared relationship through me. Polaroids were taken of the shirts to show the differing style of each. The shirts were then placed in nondescript white bags on the wall just above eye level. The height of the piece forces the viewer to interact with each of the portraits intimately by taking them down and smelling them and returning them to their designated hook. Each portrait is simply titled the person’s name: Mom, Emmy, Becca, Dwayne, Cari, and Court