Lauren McAloon.

Lauren Proctor McAloon specifically.

Um.

And I'm a sculptress.

Been here for about 30 years.

I work in a variety of materials.

Um, more recently have been.

Really honed in on the base of most of the work of being a boat shape.

Um, or vessels.

And so I call them vessel series.

And they've been coming out from me for the last, I'd say, ten years.

And this is a very specific this exhibit is a specific body of work within.

That vessel series.

My studio is located on Stock Island.

The next quay up going towards Miami from Key West.

Um, quite a few artists are out here.

I'm in a compound called the Stock Yard Studios, and there are stone workers, woodworkers, painters, assemblage artists.

So it's a really good community here.

Um, we kind of leave each other alone, but also pop in on each other.

And if I need a critique or, um, they're everybody's always happy to help.

I come from a family that's very uses their hands a lot for doing things extremely creative.

Um, my mother was a painter.

Father was an architect, but also could pretty much do anything.

I had an incredible childhood growing up, and since then have dabbled.

One of those people that's knows a little bit about a lot of things.

Worked on boats for a while.

Um, building boats for a while.

Um, fishmonger for a while here in the keys.

And, but I realized all of it kind of fed into, um, a sense of design and, um, three dimensions as opposed to two-dimensional work is my joy.

And here in the keys started to take it seriously.

I had a piece accepted when I first learned welding for a sculpture, Key West, which used to be an annual exhibit out at Fort Zachary Taylor and then different other venues.

And when that piece was accepted to be shown, I kind of started really thinking seriously about it.

Um, the boat series, the boat, the vessel series that I've been working on pretty much for the last ten years started with starting to learn about ceramics, and I literally dropped a piece of clay through a not well, he dropped it and it elongated out and I was like, whoa!

And then I purposely threw it and continually and depending on the clay body and the how malleable it was, um, different, the boat shape would come out.

And I've been playing now with that for quite a while, and then taking them apart and putting them back together, adding things to, um, reference basically what I'm thinking about.

I'm migration.

It's immigration.

But with the apostrophe it's pronounced I'm migration.

And that is a reference to the fact that we all, by force or by choice, have migration or immigration in our personal histories.

And that's really important for people not to forget.

The reaction to the exhibit has been overwhelmingly positive.

I'm actually humbling.

So, um, a lot of people have seen my work over the years.

One piece here, one piece there.

But to see a quantity and a number of pieces and all within a theme within the vessel series, uh, had surprised a lot of people.

I think they were like, whoa.

And but a lot of people were waiting to see the pressure was big time, waiting to see what I was going to do after having left the studios, having time now and having this incredible space, um, to work in people, I was able to go big and bigger than I ever been able to before, and that was a lot of fun.

The rudders, um, those are off of the Dry Tortugas back when there was the wet foot, dry foot policy.

So they're all bent.

Because getting close to any type of landform, you didn't go slow.

You.

Read up on land, and so all the rudders have this bend in them from going up on land.

And they are each one is so different from another.

And for to me it just is amazing that people put their trust.

In something that looks so simple to get them all the way across.

They're just amazing.

I mean, the rope was on it still.

I have a few others.

One had carefully stitched leather.

Um, on the handle, but.

I mean, they're all different.

They're all home made out of what people could find.

My hope that conversations that would instigate conversations about personal migration, immigration for people happened, at least at the opening, you know?

Where's your family from?

Um, well, my family came on the Mayflower.

Oh, mine came two years ago.

And people, especially with the current, um.

Situations with immigration and migration all over the world, has been right at the forefront of a lot of people's mind.

And here was a space to, um, have it be okay to have a conversation about it.

And that that was really heartening to to see happen.

If it keeps coming out, then I'm just going to keep doing it because I really enjoy it.

Um, there's other things I've been playing with the palm fronds.

Um, the royal palm fronds.

I've been collecting them for a while now because they, some of them come down and they're extremely dress like, and I really like that.

So definitely now I have the space to continue working with them.

I would sometime I will get enough of them that I like that I want to make all these, you know, dancing dresses all in a circle.

You know, people always ask, what do you like about us that makes you stay?

And, you know, most generally the answer is, well, I like the water.

You know, I like the weather, the people, of course.

And for me.

Environmentally, it's the sky.

The sky here is just phenomenal.

And people wise, it's one of the very few places I've ever lived where people don't pigeonhole you.

They allow you to.

They truly allow and support you to change on your own personal journey.

You know, when I came here as a fishmonger, they supported me at that.

Um, and then morphed into spending more and more than the facilities manager, the studios, and that there was great support for that and my artwork.

I mean, it's overwhelming the support for that, for that change.

And I've never seen that anywhere else where people truly support a person's journey as it changes over time, as it's inevitable it should.

And to me, that's what The Keys has done.

In Key West.