Lynne-Rachel Altman

Statement

Empty Series:

My empty series began in 2005 when I gave myself the personal challenge of using cast sintered glass as a traditional representational sculptural method to depict absence—taking up space to describe empty space—

The Empty Head forms are my attempt to crystallize a fleeting moment between embodiment and vacancy.  The spherical Egg Forms are maquettes, or concept tests, focusing on deflation, cracking, emptiness, and remainders.  And the Phantom Foot”  is inspired by my relationship with my body in space.

The Phantom/Sugar Feet installation is a natural progression from my work with sintered glass. Created in part as a space holder to call attention to, and memorialize, feet lost to complications from diabetes, the work is generated by my own complicated relationships with sugar and my body.  My great-grandmother and grandmother died from diabetes complications. I am haunted by the fear of following the path of my ancestors and of passing the disease along to future generations. 

And,I LOVE sugar.  But I am not alone. 

Each year, Americans consume an average of 152.4 pounds of caloric sweeteners, and about 65,000 people lose a lower limb due to complications from diabetes. This is 5,416 people a month, 7 people an hour, or one amputation every 8 seconds. 

I see my personal struggles with diabetes reflected in our national consciousness, and my perceived need for sugar as an extension of US colonialism and resource consumption.

According to a congressional report, 1,795 U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan  received lower limb amputations from 2001-2010. And both corn and weapons manufacturing are subsidized and encouraged through governmental policy—the corn syrup we use to fuel our bodies creates personal disease while the fuel we steal to run our machines creates global dis-ease. 

Made from pressed sugar, The Phantom/Sugar Feet create a visual reminder that our connection to the earth is being severed by our endless unbridled consumption and greed. They honor personal loss and acknowledge the presence of what haunts us; they seek to connect personal disease with loss of resources, as well as with social and political  dis-ease.

Lynne-Rachel Altman Resume.pdf