WADE SCHAMING, 2014
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My sculptures are painstakingly assembled through stacking alone. The materials remain unchanged and unbound to each other, delicate juxtapositions perilously balanced, like thought given concrete form. From discarded and forgotten objects that memorialize hope, the assembled forms aspire to return dignity to the bearer, and inspire empathy in the viewer.

Since my mother's death in 2012, the result of a rare form of dementia called Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration, I have been using her effects in building my sculptures. An unchecked hoarder, my mother kept anything and everything. These artifacts can be found throughout my work, including the Avon and Tupperware products that filled every empty space in the house, the detritus of her days as a door-to-door saleswoman. The simple means, and the promise of corporate merchandising, by which she hoped to supplement her income have become a metaphor for a life spent in enormous effort, yet modest gain, in the face of mental limitations.

In 2014, thanks to my participation in artist-in-residence programs at Vermont Studio Center and Residency 108, I have been allowed the chance to break away from the familiar materials I have inherited from my mother and experiment with objects that I discovered on-site and throughout the town of Johnson, Vermont and on a working farm in upstate New York.