Avalon Palmer
she/her
Providence, RI, USA
Avalon Palmer is a queer maker currently working at RISD. Through her work, she seeks to answer the question: How do we practice divinity? She works through European pre-modern liturgical aesthetics of order and ornament. These visual dialects have a close connection to mysticism and an anti-empirical understanding of the human condition which underpin her practice. She uses pure metals, glass, and stones to create adornment, vessels, hearths, and accessories to the taking of tea. Her work enacts person-to-object rituals which recreate relationships of self and Other. She works in the context of shared history as a psycho-cultural inheritance, which is both an oppressive regime and a ruin to reclaim. Her work explores and affects the powers of Otherness, which allows her to not only embody, but to transcend, the traditional - rewriting and rediscovering the Others relationship to history and tradition.
“I need a torch and a hearth. The torch signifies several beginnings, the development of fire is what began human life as we know it. This is both Prometheus and Homo Erectus. Since then, and through ritual, the lighting of a fire is recognized as the beginning, of a journey, a ceremony, a new year, et cetera. In addition, the act of lighting a fire is a method of gathering people, it provides warmth, beauty, and the promise of meals and nourishment. In this way, the torch and hearth are not only a promise of something new. They create the new beginning. This is the first part of a two part work.”
How does your work relate to the theme connection?
“This work's relationship to connection is through beginning and gathering. In my statement I talk a bit about the ideas of beginning, but I think that there are a lot of ways to read beginning, not just as the kind of origin of myth I am talking about, but also the beginning of friendships and relationships, and the beginning of a community. One widely accepted way to make new beginnings is to ask to light your cigarette, and have a smoke together. This is common across groups, but can take on a special significance in queer communities where meeting at all can be so difficult. Through a lighter we can make new beginnings which serve to further build our connection to each other. Additionally, the context this piece was made in was that of an accessory to a hearth. The lighting of a hearth is an act of domesticity as old as time, and cooking a meal is one of the most human ways to deepen a connection"
What role does connection play in your creative process?
“In terms of my work, right now I’m working a lot with ritual as a kind of basic form of human social existence, and connection is an inherent part of that. Ritual only truly works as part of a community, where the communication it facilitates can be understood by the people participating in it.This communication is a the core of rituals purpose and however mundane or sacred they are, this practice is key to the connection and maintenance of a community. Going forward I’m planning on working more with tea as one of these rituals, in part because I think there is a special aspect to the connection forged by tea not found elsewhere."
Torch, Steel, Flint, Enamel, 24k gold, 3.5" x 1.25" x 1.25", 2024What connection(s) does your queerness make to the world around you?
“Throughout my life I’ve been very lucky to reside in primarily queer spaces, something I was able to attain because I chose to go to a boarding high school, followed by art school. In that sense I’ve been afforded an incredible amount of connection with my identity groups in person, and those connections helped me foster my identity safely. Because of that I never formed an online facing identity, something I consider to be both a blessing and a curse. As I go out into the broader world, I’m concerned about the way queer connection is often built online and the ways I’ll end up navigating that."