Anthropologies of the Narcissist's Table

I made this during my ceramics studies in Cardiff, in 2021. I needed to say something that I couldn't say out loud.

Not every family meal is a celebration. For some of us, the table is where control lives. Where you learn to perform, to shrink, to smile while something sharp presses into you. That's what this installation is about. The nails embedded through every piece aren't decoration. They're the point. Permanent, driven in, given as love.

The plate says it plainly: "with LOVE." Two nails pressed flush into the surface. Because that's how it works. The control comes wrapped in love. You're not supposed to see the nails until you're already living with them.

I built the whole table. The faces, the masks, the hearts. The figure buried under coils. The girl reaching away. The bowl full of stones stamped SAD. Every piece made from the same material that holds the shape of whatever you press into it.

That's what clay does. It holds what happened. And it lets you put it down.