Oddly enough, I am left feeling exposed.

The weather and I are in agreement today.

The rehearsing opera singer's song sounds like my dead cat looks.

The lavender fragrance on my hands, the violin tuning, the polish language humming to the beat of swishing corduroys.

Warm dim light. No shadows are present that do not linger inside me. I wish I were a sunny person at noon.

Wait... wait, wait, wait. Down.

It is possible to be confident and insecure simultaneously

Listening for the silence between each chirp from the Robin sitting on the power line buzzing just outside of my bedroom window.

I can finally name what greets my thoughts immediately after becoming conscious…. Guilt.

Stale

Forgiveness?

The brutality of the spring smacks against my chest, while the cold breeze causes every hair to stand at attention.

Hoping for a softer summer

Cigarettes from a year ago crowded in a pile, a fragrance similar to the rotten guinea pig carcass who had passed away that winter.

Words are limiting my ability to share sepia toned thoughts spread on top of a bead of tulips

Social dexterity is as fluent to me as Portuguese. I am comforted more frequently by the humming of the freezer.

We got along on looks alone for two straight years.

It wasn't until he had found those looks in others that I felt stranded.

Being quite familiar with neglect, I thrived under the circumstances.

A slight ache attached to each of my muscles makes the morning's dread worse every time.

I remember when I woke up with a sorrowful pain in my chest. His disease probably spread

Similar to the time the fruited lotion fell to the floor to attract the ant. Shortly after there were so many. I killed them with vinegar.

They were sugar ants. It seemed obvious it would work.

I always feel like I am dying in the winter

I can't rest under these conditions

The grass stabbing through the ground, the sun lingering past the time that I have come accustomed to. The moment I become comfortable…

Constantly compensating. Being stripped down, piling layer upon layer, and peeling them off sometimes three at a time.

I can not rest under these conditions!

Rest

I can't always see clearly through the mist. It stops me from moving. I find myself pausing involuntarily.

It takes at least an hour for it to clear. I can see that bird again. The one I found dead on the ground on my way to work.

My rescue attempt of the fallen baby bird failed miserably. Every spring dead baby animals come looking for me.

The baby rabbit my dog brought to me 13 years ago, didn't make it. The family of baby rabbits we found dead in a hole at my nieces' birthday party.

I think it was the blades of grass that killed them. They try to kill me too sometimes.

I finally had found him, and he gave me away.

I searched for him everywhere. I saw him in everything.

Wanting to feel connected, I find a beat in the unbalanced washing machine. That will have to do for now.

If the weather intends to be perfect it creates pressure. An expectation that I must manage to be perfect too.

Mostly I feel inadequate. Until I can find a rhythm.

I draw the line at the shoe scuff on the kitchen floor.

I am thankful for the overcast.

When the German-Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783) worked on his collection of busts of faces contorted in extreme facial expressions, he omitted every detail that would reveal the social position of the character or distract the viewer from the artist's main ambition: Naked and bold, his "character heads" would show the reflection of the inner emotion through pure and unadorned facial expression, or rather grimaces? He casted an expression usually gone within seconds in bronze. Naked and bold: Messerschmidt's heads somehow remind the viewer of a baby, which is not yet able to communicate his emotions, his fears and his joy through words and language. Naked and bold: Barbara Wakefield's sculpture "Reluctant" (2007-2008) consists of three heads of a new born baby. Is it the moment of his birth, only his head is already visible. The rest of his body, his mother, the bed and the hospital stay invisible. It is the crucial moment of separation, of individuation, of the beginning of a new life. The newborn's expression shows ultimate strenuousness. But in a few minutes it will scream for the first time. Barbara Wakefield's sculpture shows three variations of the baby's head: One is made of blue wool, the next consists of wax and the third is made of bronze.

For this piece, materials play such a significant role. In my work I am constantly drawing on the human condition, in particular the significance of emotion. Using wool, beeswax and bronze was a very conscious choice for this work. Each material has a specific strength as well as a weakness or potential draw back. The bronze is extremely strong, yet heavy and costly. The wool is durable and nearly weightless, yet can be easily deconstructed or manipulated if someone desired to do so. The beeswax has such strength yet huge vulnerability to heat and pressure. To me, all of these qualities exist within our life and the struggles and experiences that every person may encounter. It is in the subtlety that I find significance and strength. This piece represents the common struggle of everyone involved in the human experience. (Barbara Wakefield)

The qualities of the different materials Barbara Wakefield uses for her work are essential. For "Dry Heart" she used felt. Making felt out of wool and soap water is a long process. Through permanent fulling the wool fibers are transformed and thickened to warming felt (reminding Joseph Beuys' usage of the special material produced in all cultures over the world). The artist gets within a intense dialogue with "her" material.

I like to form an emotional bond with the materials I am working with. The connection acquired by a smell or texture allows me to reveal my most raw feelings and emotions with out hesitation. (Barbara Wakefield)

"Reluctant" and "Dry Heart" will be shown at Gallery UNO's booth at the BERLINER LISTE 2009 in Berlin from 24-27 September 2009.

BARBARA WAKEFIELD received her BFA from the Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, in 2007. In 2006 she was awarded with the Talent Scholarship, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago. Since 2006 she had several group and solo exhibitions in Chicago. It is her second exhibition at Gallery UNO: In 2008 ARTexhibitionLink.com's gallery space showed "Dialogue" together with psychologist J. E. Baker.

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