I am interested in chance. Chance is a possibility of something happening. Everyone has a personal experience with an unpredictable sequence of events that change the course of the future, whether for good or bad. Is it too hard to trust chance in this time of self-determination? Is it lazy to leave things to chance, when we work so hard to make our luck, or how much is destiny? 

If words were my medium, this would be easy; crap shoot, loaded, luck of the dice, jackpot, no dice, high stakes, long shot. But, I make shapes, right now I am exploring the cube, more specifically dice.  I play with materials. Chance has a role in these materials; paper/printmaking, clay or textiles. I can flatten the cube and make 11 variations that would all fold into a die. Even within this pattern- these dice are uneven, illogical and wont roll. When made from clay, it becomes dicey- Clay is a shapeshifter, when hand-building, firing, and glazing- it has a muscle memory, shrinks, cracks and transforms. Or weaving the shapes with the pips (dots), they become abstract, you cannot rely on the logic of the warp and weft to make a grid, wools can constrict and cottons can expand. However, the 6 is always opposite from 1, 3 from 4, and 2 from 5- that you can count on.  

The next move was to find a place for the dice to be, a backgammon board. And then a flood of memories came rushing back, centered on my Grandfather’s porch and him playing backgammon with my brother. They could see logic in the sequence or probability in the luck of  the roles, another art form, gambling. There are coveted roles and the highest of compliments, double 6’s. Double ones, snake eyes, sometimes symbolize bad luck, but can be quite useful in backgammon. My favorite first move in backgammon is 3:1- that is the only predictable first move that I know of, everything else is dependent on chance.

I am comfortable in a haptic place and can I gamble with making shapes. From there you can imagine the possibilities, feel the anxiety of a loaded deck, anticipate what could be next, trust in chance, and the probability needed to prod the result in your favor.  

Image at top:
Dice #4, 2020
From Luck of the Dice,
Series of 11 monoprints,
30 x 22”

See full Dice series