This work was created by allowing one of my empty filler buckets to twist and twirl in wet filler. Once the material had fulfilled its artistic potential, the bucket remained as excess. It appears to “dance,” like a skeleton on its own grave.

Humans tend to animate dead objects. We see this in cartoons, and in the way we curse at a table after stubbing our toes against it. On some level, we struggle to differentiate between living and non-living matter clearly. What, after all, is the true difference between a corpse and a living person?

At its core, this is a question of language. We rely on language—categories and structures—to understand reality. Yet language itself is not reality; it is not the raw, unmediated, and boundless matter of the world. Instead, we shape reality in our minds in order to grasp it. We animate it.