Rings of Sonia (2022)

Brass, steel, hooks, transducers, contact microphones, mixer, hand-knotted rug

Sonia Shimberg, my mother's mother, died in 1982 of breast cancer. I was negative seven years old. Though she worked by day as an architect to serve her family as a single parent, she always found time to spread herself in colorful oily streaks across squares of canvas. Though I never met her I reclaimed her presence from the way, and the fact, that she painted. She became a star inside me, lighting the path towards safety and belonging. Whenever I would feel shame about myself - my desire to make art, my femininity, my holiness, my weakness - I turned to her hologram for comfort. I wrapped myself in her markings and wove a blanket which has hugged me through my darkest hours. Rings of Sonia is dedicated to her. A circle of singing metal surrounds the listener. In the center, a rug (itself an interpretation of my favorite of her paintings. It is a node, a home for her spirit and an altar of my gratitude. I hope that inside this column of color, angle, and sound that Sonia might visit our listeners, caressing them with the gentle hand that has sustained me all these years.