It is often said that if we dream of losing our teeth, a tooth being loose in our mouth or rotten teeth, we are faced with a degree of uncertainty, lack of control or anxiety in our personal life. This etch came about in a similar time period of my life, where I experienced and still do, vivid and grotesque dreams of my teeth falling out. During a time of much uncertainty, as a young graduate, artist, and waitress during the changes of a global pandemic, I’ve had to make ends meet in every way possible.

The image of the inside of my mouth with missing teeth, also shows a ‘burst’ growth of what looks like wisdom teeth. The term ‘wisdom teeth’ as we know, derived from the fact that these teeth start to show between the ages of 21 and 25 along with the intense pain accompanied with this process, and interestingly enough, our most uncertain times.

These elongated, seemingly distorted wisdom teeth, were inspired by the ‘tooth-like’ shape and textures of one of my houseplants. To me, the presence of a house plant emanates the idea of comfort, solace and a sense of control or contentment. As we water them, take care of them and place them in specific spaces in our homes to gather sunlight, a glimmer of satisfaction is then perhaps generated through this wish to have a sense of control of the world around us. There seems to be an interplay between control, the lack there-of, wisdom and uncertainty along with different time periods in one’s life and how it is implicated by that of the worlds.

This artwork is small because at the end of the day, these feelings are not unique, but this does not detract from the fact they do matter.