It’s the Vermonter in you
2019
Neon
36” x 5” x 4”
It’s the Vermonter in You is a piece that delves into modern day reunions within my own adoption and communicating through text messages. The work is made out of bright white neon tubing with the front of the letters being painted black to imitate the text on a cell phone screen. The words stretch across the wall as one continuous sentence as it was as a text message. This work comes from my many years of hoping and dreaming to reconnect with my birth mother and build a relationship with her because I have felt that it would fill a place in my heart that had been void. I have recently begun to talk with my birth mother after all these years of separation and silence, through phone calls and text messages. So far it has been slow and we are getting to know each other but some precious moments have come from these short interactions. There was one that stood out to me and made me tear up because it made me feel like I was accepted as her own. We were messaging back and forth about things we liked and we agreed on a lot of opinions to which she responded, “It’s the Vermonter in you.” At that moment I felt that I belonged, that I was a part of her family. I had never considered myself as a Vermonter before because I had never been there but it made me consider that as a part of my identity. I wanted to bring this text into my work because it encompasses the emotional complexity that comes with adoption and discusses heritage.