Anna Boothe
Yellow Brain
Colorful hand-casted glass
2.5” x 2” x 1.5”
About Anna Boothe
"That which deals with human visceral response, compassion, vulnerability, and the metaphors that can be woven from these elements, are the conceptual grist for the sculptural work I have made over the last several years. As individuals, what kinds of veneers do we create, and why? What are the messages we project? Where do the perspectives that drive our responses originate and how can we steer them? What tools do we use to interpret the projections of others? Basically, I am curious about the relationships between our internal reactions and external projections, and ultimately, how we communicate with each other on conscious and subconscious levels. My work is an effort to reach an understanding of these inquiries. I set-out visual networks, or radii, that connect the various factors related to my investigations. The resulting pieces are meant to be icons, pseudo-mirrors, or even prosthetics, that aid in self-comprehension. The multi-part objects I create provide objectivity to issues or feelings that are often difficult to articulate. Many of the current works employ body parts, such as hands, hearts and brains. The hands represent holding on, letting go and giving as themes that recur in our everyday emotional lives. Hearts and brains refer to the tandem, yet often polarized, sources from which our reactions come. I attempt to create new contexts for these common symbols in an effort to reaffirm them, metaphorically, as essential ingredients of a balanced stance from which to generate healthy interaction. Glass, as a material, is appropriate for what I seek to express because it is capable of conveying the simultaneous strength and fragility, as well as the translucency, or degree of visibility, of these associations. I’m thirty years into my love affair with this elusive stuff and there is so much more to explore."