The work in Soft Skills was made in the brief quiet of nap times, the foggy hours after bedtime, the cracks in the daily grind that is working parenthood. Made largely at night, many of the pieces that comprise Soft Skills are nocturnes. The prevalence of the color black is reminiscent of this nocturnal aspect but also representative of the dreamy subconscious, the weight of the past, and at times, the unknowns and uncertainties of the future.

The individual parts and materials that make up Soft Skills have been persuaded into new forms and joined in community. These connections are embodied within a chain of branches of a family tree, a cotton net full of shadows, a scroll of quilted paper, a flock of drawings depicting the chaos of growth. There is a balance between softness and structure in these works; materials are sometimes flexible or fragile, at other times rigid and unyielding. Stretched quilt squares evoke a sense of home and safety, comfort and sleep, but also allude to the occasionally dark or hidden complexities family history and lineage.

Without soft skills – empathizing, loving, relating to and attending to others – we are doomed. Becoming a mom has given me a profound appreciation for these types of skills; it’s certainly not the hard skills, like one’s proficiency in data analysis, or the CV milestones that soothe a crying baby with a fever. The act of loving is synonymous with paying attention, with understanding needs and desires external to one’s own and attending to them without expectation of reciprocity. Being a parent is not requisite to embodying these skills, but late at night while listening to my son’s quiet breathing, I imagine how our world could be if we valued the health and success of our relationships with others, or the healing of generational traumas, or even careful caretaking as much as we do our financial and professional achievements.