ALICE COMBS

I went back to upstate NY to visit my family in December 2014.  Feeling a bit nostalgic, I rummaged around my room looking at things still there from high school and earlier.  A bunch of gymnastics trophies were hidden away in my closet.  I think I moved them out of sight once I quit gymnastics and became more interested in Harry Potter, drawing, Final Fantasy, computer programming.  But gymnastics never really left my life.  I still have sensation-dreams of flipping and stretching...and the anxiety and freedom that comes with it.   I saw the repeated figurine on top of each trophy in that closet and suddenly wondered if I could recreate that pose in the body I am in now.  Like a collision of eras.  It'd be kind of funny, especially if I forgot to shave my bikini area, as is the subject of some of my recurring gymnastics dreams.

I like to display both the painting and trophy I pulled from that closet together.  They are essentially mirror-images of one another.