3West KC > The Holding Pattern

Grief leaves a mark—not just on the heart, but on the land. Altars to the Could Have Been explores the weight of loss through the language of rural landscapes, mysticism, and devotion. Ceramic fence posts, standing as relics of a past that never fully came to be, are both barriers and invitations—thresholds between what was, what remains, and what is forever out of reach.

Carved with symbols, relief sculptures, and inscriptions, the surfaces of these posts bear silent witness to absence, inscribing mourning into the materiality of the earth itself. Yet, they also hold something more—an act of reaching. In many places, fence posts serve as quiet messengers, carrying the carved names of lovers, prayers for rain, or hopeful signs left behind for those who might come after. In this way, these works are not just markers of loss, but manifestations of longing and persistence, a testament to the way we carve hope into even the most weathered surfaces.

The title of this exhibition, The Holding Pattern, refers to the circling, the waiting—the restless suspension of pacing before arrival. Like idling planes awaiting their descent, these works capture the tension of hovering between past and future, between memory and possibility. By reinterpreting a utilitarian form into something fragile and ritualistic, Altars to the Could Have Been asks: Where do we leave our grief? Where do we carve our hope? And what does it mean to wait for something that may never come?