The great maids of the sea, crabs are scavengers, picking clean the ocean floor until bones sparkle and skeletons smile. These spider-aliens tidy out of hunger, curtsy in their anatomy. Who's to say that sirens sing from girl flesh instead of kissing crabs?

Crabs evacuate their own shells up to 20 times in a life cycle; they expose their vulnerable exterior to protect themselves as they grow rather than staying small. As powerful as the women in my life are, I cannot help but imagine the behemoths that they might be if they would have just grown...

Holding in, lips pursed; extracting bile, mouth gaping; knowing peace, smiling. The crabs are colored with a bed of salt and vinegar, a near-alien landscape but a familiar crust in texture. They are at rest, and the acidic surroundings overcome them in their complacency, locking them into too-tight shells and threatening to grow them into mountains. Nothing left but an acerbic grime-green stain.

The green-blue crust on these sculptures is made with a mixture of salt, vinegar, and water that mimics bronze disease (a corrosive patination that occurs on undersea bronze artifacts). The patina is extremely caustic and can eat through the thickest metal.  

In 2019, I was diagnosed with a spasmatic stomach: a condition that precedes stomach ulcers as a response to physical markers of stress. My mother and aunt both have the same condition and ulcers, and my grandmother died of stomach cancer.

I have always been provided for and shielded by the matriarchs around me, without ever knowing that they were literally digesting themselves with worry. Now I feel expected to keep and share secrets in a way that protects the men and children in our family. The women around me have held a generational burden to make me: now I can make those sacrifices for the next generation…I can’t help but wonder whether we would be eating our own stomachs if we would take care of ourselves first more often.