Brianna Martray, Shadow Happy

S h a d o w H a p p y

Private Collection

Site specific limited edition reproductions available for acquisition by private and corporate collectors.
Contact Brianna for a bid. 303.437.7489 or brianna@briannamartray.com

Photo by Tony Gallagher

Self: (folded paper cranes, 1"-8½")

Once upon a time, I wrote a novel. It took me 8 years and upon completion a New York City Literary Agent asked for a copy. I reread it again, decided it wasn't good enough and never sent it. In 2006, I started folding the stacks of manuscript pages lying around my house into origami cranes. Fast forward to the summer of 2010 when both my computer and my back up hard drive are stolen and the only finished copy of my novel lives in 4,000 folded paper cranes, the shadow of thousands of hours of work, the history of my creative journey, remnants of a former self.

Community:

(glued circles of tempered glass)

Everything is made from the same 118 known elements. What if all those elements were once one, just one giant Something. Let's say That Something was an enormous sheet of glass but It was lonely because It was all that Was. So it shattered, broke into trillions upon billions of little pieces so it could experience itself as infinite possibility; as a solar wind, a ponderosa pine, a human being. And we're all just jagged pieces of broken glass with our sharp parts that can cut deep, but we can also laugh and love and bump into each other; find the pieces that fit and hold onto those as best as we know how. And with the fault line of experience, something shattered becoming solid again can reflect the gift of light more brilliantly than without, we need contrast to see, a shadow to rise from, we are more beautiful broken.

Contact Brianna