Hearts

This series of blown glass forms explores the idea of gender as a constructed performance rather than an innate truth—an idea shaped by both Buddhist philosophy and the writing of Judith Butler. Each heart-like form begins with a shared process: hot breath, molten glass, a vessel expanding. From there, they shift—folding, sagging, twisting—into variations that blur distinctions between bodies, organs, and selves. I was interested in how we assign gendered meaning to things that are, at their core, fluid and impermanent. These forms suggest how much sameness underlies what we’re taught to see as binary difference. I chose softness, distortion, and a refusal to resolve into a single, ideal shape.