Collegiate Times

KS: Yes. I think I have in the process of building it, but yes, I will.

CT: How did you decide upon fire and burial as the means of "release?"

KS: It seemed natural. The fire is like a cremation of burdens, and I think it taps into our old ritual ways of releasing through fire and transformation through fire. I think it crosses all cultures. ... It's like music: it speaks at an unconscious place. Through that, it can equally touch anybody no matter what their background is. ... The burial - in our culture we either burn our bodies when we're done or we bury them. So this is kind of the same thing. The burdens that we carry as part of our body and the release of that is a funeral in essence. We're giving that up.

CT: Why will sunflowers replace the burdens in the memorial garden?

KS: For a few reasons. The practical reason: It's a large enough seed that people can pick up from the vessel and place it in (the boat). The other side is that it's such a regenerative flower that grows large and has a great show. And also, it's bird food. So there's that other ritual element of the birds taking the prayers up.

CT: You've incorporated fire into other works. Do you hesitate to harm your pieces?

KS: I've yet to let a piece go completely. ... This will be the first piece where I've actually parted with aspects - the burden bags that will drop off of this. I put a whole lot of time into sewing those bags and stuffing them and wrapping them. There's a whole ritual to that honoring all that will participate in this. That was kind of my burden, making the bags. When those burn and drop off and they're buried, I'll part with that bit of my labor.

CT: You also do furniture work. The Collegiate Times needs a good coffee table. Could it commission you, money pending, to build one?

KS: You too? Wow, interesting. The (Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention) just commissioned me to do a coffee table. That would be very cool. To get two coffee table commissions out of this little trek over here to Virginia Tech would be awesome.

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