These wall sculptures represent objects that are called by several names, including utility covers, manhole covers, maintenance covers, or my preferred title, Access Covers. To begin these works, I edited photographs of access covers and printed the manipulated photos onto velvet fabric. I carefully dissected the velvet image into all the different shapes and forms of the depicted object. This process resulted in a piece of velvet that pictured the background or lower level of the access cover, dotted with holes where the shapes that make up the raised surfaces of the access cover were cut out and extracted. I then carved a wood panel to recreate the physicality of the access cover as an object, and I reconstructed the image into a dimensional object by mounting the printed sections of velvet to the carved panel.

These Access Covers evolved out of the original exercise that prompted my series of Bricks, a task to create depictions of a mass-produced object with a sense of individuality and nuance. As grids arise out of production and multiplicity, I have been enamored by grid-based patterns as aesthetics of utility for a long time. A grid implies order, which in turn suggests containment. These terms all engage ideas surrounding purpose, a concept appropriate to access, or utility, covers. However, I was interested in examining the access covers as objects that are often overlooked or under-considered aesthetically through a perspective that values the aesthetics over their physical purpose. The patterns of the access covers initially drew my attention, but I quickly also became mesmerized by the various colors, textures, and surface qualities that emerged when I amplified the often more subtle visual aspects of the access covers.

The shine of the velvet surface of these Access Covers reflects light in a manner that attracts and holds the viewer's gaze. The shallow relief of the sculpture expands the form of the access cover image into a physical object; meanwhile, the shadows included in the printed image are at odds with the shadows the actual Access Cover casts on the wall where it hangs, confusing the ocular understanding of the piece's spatial presence. These visual effects entrance the viewer, prompting the objects to be seen not only as utilitarian objects that grant entrance to a physical space, but also as visually enticing patterns that mesmerize and prompt additional thought. The color palettes I teased out of these Access Covers, along with my choice to use velvet as a material and the word "access" to describe these objects, elicit conceptual consideration of appearance, access, privilege, and the gendered connotations of hard and soft.