I’ve begun working on a highly personal series of Story Sculptures that are autobiographical stories painted onto significant sculptural pieces. The first one begins with a rocking horse.

ROCKING HORSE 
Oil and latex on vintage wooden rocking horse
9x5x16.5 inches 

TEXT:

It was a cool March day I was three soon to be four in three months I was playing outside all morning when we got word there was some kind of emergency at the Island I pictured a tropical island like Gilligans on the TV

March 29 1979 everything changed Mom and Dad were rushing around + my grandmother was smoking cigarettes and talking on the phone with the long cord They told me to draw + watch TV with Pussycat our poodle Something was wrong 

Everyone was packing + rushing around the house I can’t remember what I drew on the paper or what was on TV at all 

We had to leave right away they said packing the Gran Torino I was scared because I just got a rocking horse and I didn’t think we would ever be back because of the nuclear meltdown I cried over it 

They pulled down all the blinds and closed the curtains The house was dark and scary I looked at my horse so lonely

My horse looked so alone I was scared to leave it alone forever 

We drove to Ohio for hours to stay with my aunt away from the wind they said I got so sick for days My Mom feared it was radiation poisoning 

There was an incident at Three Mile Island which was nothing like Gilligans Island and no one knew if we were going to die or ever go home 

The Carters visited the power plant and Roselyn left abruptly Everyone was scared We were sitting ducks in a poison stew

Everything else is a blur: Ohio being sick and waiting Mom and Dad went back to get money and Mom suspected that may have caused her cancer soon after I am furious now that I know the truth 

I don’t remember when we came back home only that I had a Grover birthday cake and my older cousins look really bored in the photos

I don’t know what happened to my rocking horse So many cancer deaths in years to come They all knew more than they would say but it was a Level Five 

It never occurred to me that the trauma helped to make me so anxious

Mom died of cancer on August 27 2003