Installation, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists’ Gallery
San Francisco, CA, 2003

In 1997, I was given an Artist In Residency award in a remote area of County Kerry in South West Ireland. I have been in many residencies in different countries since then, but that time in Ireland was by far the richest of those experiences. While in Ireland, I read and talked to many people about the “great hunger” and the migration of the Irish people. It affected me deeply, and at one point I found myself carving potatoes in the shape of boats. I called them casket ships, a metaphor for the thousands that died making that voyage. When I returned home to the States, I continued working with potatoes – making forms by first slicing and extracting water, then reassembling and shaping them. The process was very labor intensive and messy, so I put the work aside for several years. Finally, this year I began to complete the body of work, picking up where I left off. I found that time had only polished those memories and feelings.