In 2013, Debra DiBlasi of Jaded Ibis Press invited me to create a visual interpretation of Rosetta Ballew Jenkin’s first poetry collection, Is the Room.

A line from the poem “As if she were something opened”—“she lines the walls with herself”—became my point of departure. I imagined the room as a space between the subconscious and perceived reality, where vulnerability and memory take physical form.

In my studio, I constructed a set of translucent drawing paper, mirrored Mylar, and a brightly lit white wall. I invited participants to interact with these materials—punching, tearing, and moving through them—exploring their relationships to themselves, one another, and me as witness and recorder.