Impressions: A feeling or sense. An effect produced by the presence or action of someone or something. A visual representation of someone or something made by its mark left on a surface.
Combining historic and hand-made photographic processes, I make images directly from contact with natural elements. From young aspen trees to the ash remains of loved ones, the images contain one-of-a-kind impressions of the living being they are created from.
(2020-2022)
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Our lives are in a state of perpetual change, and myriad liminal spaces exist between its beginning and its end. A nascent living being contains boundless potential—only some of which becomes fully manifest over time—and it leaves indelible traces of its existence in its wake. We see this process play out in nature, and throughout our own lives. Seeing it, I consider the feelings of loss and longing that often emerge from change, balanced with anticipation for new, latent possibilities.
This series began in anticipation of leaving my mountain home, with its precious forest I had nurtured for many years. Needing to take a part of it with me, I harvested young aspen trees with their roots intact, and lay them on full sheets of watercolor paper coated in Cyanotype emulsion (a 19th Century light-sensitive liquid). As they lay exposing in the sun for several hours, I rewet the paper with various natural acidic and base liquids. The chemical reaction created ephemeral colors in the wet cyanotype. To keep the image at the height of its evolving state, I brought it into my studio and photographed it prior to processing, when the final image would lose all color except for blue. I print the resulting digital images on watercolor paper.
That the image is made by direct contact with the aspen shoots I pulled is meaningful in that each aspen leaves a trace of itself in time. Because they are rhizomes, although these aspens would die, the larger being of which they are only a part continues to thrive, having let go of only one aspect—one potential manifestation—of its existence. Like these trees, although significant parts of ourselves give way to change throughout our lives, the traces we leave throughout a greater sphere of influence endure.
Archival Pigment Prints on Watercolor Paper:
EDITION of 10 + 3 A/P’s: 15” x 20.4” (Approx.) on 17 x 22” watercolor paper
EDITION of 10 + 2 A/P’s: 22” x 30” (actual size of original wet cyanotype on watercolor paper)
EDITION of 5: 30” x 40” on watercolor paper
(2023)
ARTIST STATEMENT
"…’Not as the world giveth, I give unto you.’ That’s the catch. Did you think, before you were caught, that you needed, say, life?...
You see the creatures die and you know you will die. I think the dying pray at the last not “please” but “thank you” as a guest thanks a host at the door. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see.” -Annie Dillard, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
My artwork has always dealt directly with the natural world and our relationship to it, indirectly, but an equally important undercurrent is grappling with the universal questions of life and death, grief, and time—with the nature of existence itself.
There are more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and nearly 2 trillion galaxies in the universe. In relation, there are more than 50 trillion cells in each human body, and 100 trillion atoms in each human cell. At its core, all existence—we included—are made of stardust. When one considers both this interconnectedness and its incomprehensible sense of scale, we must also ask, “Where did all of this come from; why do we exist within it; and, in the scheme of all existence, what does one life matter?” Though these questions are unanswerable, hints of truths are found throughout nature itself.
My newest exploration includes cyanotypes and both color and black and white digital photographs. The images all incorporate the cremated ash remains of someone I love. Celestial Bodies are unique cyanotype photogram images exposed in the sunlight, and composed by spreading the ashes around family heirloom bowls. The nearly black and white images, entitled Stellar Observations and Ashes to Dust, initially read as starscapes, but are color prints of scanned ashes. Finally, the large-scale color images combine scanned ashes with open-source NASA astronomical images where I scatter and place my loved one’s ashes Among the Stars. Where one starts and the other ends is at once indeterminant and well-defined, and a viewer’s understanding of those bounds shifts with viewing distance. The scale of the large edition is determined by the native NASA file size print resolution.
Among the Stars
Archival Pigment Prints of NASA Astronomical Images with Scanned Cremated Human Remains
Large Edition: 3 Prints
Small Edition: 5 Prints + 2 Artist Proofs
Celestial Bodies (Untitled Original Cyanotypes)
1/1: Unique Cyanotype Photograms from Cremated Human Remains on Watercolor Paper
22” x 30”
Ashes to Dust
Archival Pigment Prints of Scanned Human Cremated Remains
14.5” x 20”
Edition of 5 + 2 Artist Proofs
Stellar Observations
Archival Pigment Prints of Scanned Human Cremated Remains
20” x 16”
Edition of 5 + 2 Artist Proofs
(2006-2010)
ARTIST STATEMENT:
(IM)PERFECT CIRCLES AND CAPILLARITY ARE PART OF A LARGER SERIES “INDRA’S NET”
The Buddhist conception of the Universe is illustrated as “Indra’s Net”—an endless net expanding in all directions, through all dimensions. At each thread’s intersection lies a single jewel. Each jewel holds a perfect, infinitely receding reflection of all other jewels and the net itself. This metaphor describes all existence as interpenetrating, all phenomena as interdependent, and defines perfection as an attribute of emptiness.
I see this image in natural phenomena, in time and light, in persistent or recurring processes, in emergence, metamorphosis and fruition. My series Indra’s Net consists of discrete groups (and sequences) of images that visually represent these abstract concepts. (IM)PERFECT CIRCLES is a group of 8 diptychs demonstrating the nature of gestural purity. Inside each of these factory-discarded glass plates there is a minute imperfection that was identified, circled and stamped out. The glass plates were buried along with other factory refuse. As I unearthed them I realized that time and weather had rendered the original imperfections imperceptible, transforming the circles themselves into the locus for contemplation. Viewed side-by-side, the negatives and their positives coalesce, referring to the dichotomy between perfection and perception.
(IM)PERFECT CIRCLES is
CAPILLARITY is a series of 9 images that document the interaction among water, salt and oil.
