not ripe/not rotten

Abstract: Throughout my Master of Fine Arts studies, I integrated a newly growing interest of postmodernism’s Affect Theory into my curated habits of self-care and ongoing studio art practice. If “Affect Theory” is the study of how bodies move or are moved, I imagined all these processes to be influencing one another in ways parallel to the functions and movements of affect. For example, because my graduate studies required, I return to my hometown after an extended absence, I was forced to confront and cope with a slew of residual emotions from my adolescence. Many of these confrontations prompted physiological and psychological responses in my body and mind—according to this theory, affect is not simply a feeling nor is it simply the cause of a feeling. Affect is more than emotion but less than a quantifiable truth. Affect is the in between.
            These thoughts guided me as I completed dozens of body adornments using digital design and 3D printing alongside traditional metalsmithing and jewelry-making techniques. Each work is a conglomerate of impulse, material, and charged symbolism. By focusing on what Sarah Ahmed refers to as “sticky histories,” in conjunction with my lived and embodied art practice, I was able to begin the processing of unresolved traumas from my adolescence. My methods and experiences provide evidence for how combing Affect Theory with art may have the potential for promoting social change.