Mappa*, 2022
Blind embossed cloth on paper with thread, 2022 This series was created for the exhibition, Another World Is Possible. In building my other world, I looked to where I often spend time: in my romanticized past. Using cloth that my grandmother made from cotton twine, I explored the evolution of a new world, one that is peaceful and unspoiled and where glaciers do not melt to rock and forests do not burn to ash. Where the pace is slow and tasks take as long as they take. Where the honest is elevated and kitchen twine is enticed to become beautiful. [*The word ”map” derives from the Latin “mappa,” a word meaning ”a cloth.”] |
Flag, blind embossed flag with cotton thread, 2021
I grew up in a forgotten mill town at a bend in the Connecticut River. The brick remains of its water-powered textile and paper factories were as much a part of my childhood as the thriving coal-fired coated paper plant sprawling for acres across the street from our house. It was the house my father grew up in and the house my family later ran a film-processing business out of. For decades, we quietly carried on our town’s environmental degradation tradition, long after awareness was raised by the first Earth Day, the official formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and passage of the Clean Air and Clear Water acts. A Kodak Paper and Chemicals sign hung near our front door alongside a cotton American flag unfurled for appointed holidays. While I’ve watched the national emblem of stars and stripes shift away from its origins of unity and allegiance, the ripped and frayed and sun-bleached remnant of my family’s flag has become a more honest symbol. Preserving it’s decayed impression and carefully mending holes that were created during debossing are my small attempts to illuminate an ecologically destructive legacy. |
Indelible Series (2020–ongoing)
The grid has been imposed on nature since humans searched for ways to chart and control their world. Urban expansion, power networks, and natural resource extraction rely on this system of mapping, often with irreparable environmental damage. I began the Indelible project by reusing my own work to foreground and mourn these eternally-scarred landscapes. |