FIREWATCH cont . LAST zine

“ work on an accessible and personal scale. We are un-official, unpolished, non-bureaucratic, and off Higgins. The book’s title acknowledges that Higgins is where we emerged and where we were originally from. However, we must stay away from its jurisdiction. 25 feet from Higgins is where students are allowed to smoke. “25 FEET Off Higgins” is where students are allowed to express themselves freely while having proximity to their base. It is a discussion from beyond Higgins; to be brought back into Higgins.

Boasting an impressive top-speed of Mach 22 and the radar signature of an aircraft 1/10th its size, the design philosophy can most succinctly be stated as “stay fast, stay hidden, stay alive”.

Indeed, on the eve of Second Great Ignition, the largest nuclear war to engulf Uhlen, the first and last aircraft in the sky was an SA-X-29 “Firewatch”. Only one specimen survived the war, but was later reverse engineered and serves a permanent VIP transport role, moving high level fleet personnel from remote bases to the FSU capital in a matter of minutes - not hours.

In recent years, my artwork has analyzed how image curation, particularly in the context of family photos, claims personal histories while also blurring the line between reality and fiction.

How much of our history and/or memory has been curated at best or completely falsified at worst? Can this contextualization of person-hood be a violent act? Or rather, is it the gift of cathecting life by means of storytelling?

This painting has been a more narrow study within this context, focusing specifically on the eerie almost intangible quality of femininity, and how women before me have occupied that role.

I am trying to understand the ways in which motherhood, domesticity, and femininity have shaped my familial history; perhaps looking for answers to my own crises of identity, but more so trying to empathize with this form that is just as difficult to actualize as it is to define.