Emily Brodrick: What We Choose to Keep

My current works are collections of materials, patterns, forms and memories. My way of bringing my more rural roots into my current city life. As a child I would visit my Nonna's house on Shelter Island and my brothers and I would pick up treasures on the beach. Shells, crab claws, pieces of seaweed—and when we were lucky—an intact horseshoe crab. When we would get home we'd organize these objects into little, curated shrines to the sea.

This series is a reflection of these experiences and, in a sense, a continuation of that process of shrine-making; an homage to nature, but also to the memory of growing up in it. Acrylic paint, cut paper, ceramics and handspun yarn are formed into highly-detailed images and shapes that evoke living organisms. On multiple levels, this series embodies a yearning for a more "real" way of living as organic patterns and forms are coupled with traditionally considered craft media to create installations that evoke the past, both recent and distant.