I began my performance by wearing a woman’s suit that illustrates independence, education, and power. Today, I am photographed with the suit unaltered and I will begin to assess the level of intensity of interaction with my husband. From a selection of multiple suits of various colors, I will choose which color best represents my interactions with him. A darker color illustrates a negative interaction while a lighter color illustrates a positive interaction. I remove a section from the selected suit (such as a sleeve, collar, or paint leg) and will add this section to my original suit. Every day my portrait will be photographed wearing the transformed garment.
Concept
Each interaction leaves an impression and a memory. The intensity of the interaction can increase the impression or the persistence of a memory. During a relationship these impressions can have deeper psychological affects that may be difficult to see, hide or forget. Upon each interaction one can resist or accept how the other has affected them. In the performance I accept the interaction’s significance with my spouse by placing an object on my body. But I bury the previous event’s significance by adding additional layers on top of previous layers. Each day another piece is added and the underlying layers become temporarily hidden while I attempt to appear physically unchanged.
Sarah Layne Cole 
Someone asked me a great question today about the black suit I began this project with and whether the color was significant. And yes there is a significance. This suit is the first suit I owned while working as a military spouse. It is pretty old and has allot of memories attached to it from my personal experiences being a military spouse, deployment, and major ups and downs that can happen with in a relationship especially with in the military. At one point, I was lucky enough to have a great job while being a military spouse and this suit is significant of my attempt to have some semblance of a career during that time. However, many spouses have a difficult time finding a long term career – especially when being relocated all over the world due to their spouse’s profession in the military.
This suit is the base of my project as it is part of an experience which illustrates this performance’s overall concept: layers of emotional baggage while attempting to maintain a professional and ‘together’ composure. The suit resembles an attempt to maintain a particular composure with increased difficulty.