This piece is about the proliferation of invasive species and the impact this has on the immediate ecosystem.
detail shot
Each section has a red thread running through it to the net below, speaking to the bloodline running through a species planted in three different locations.
This configuration explores the ways that other species provide resources for each other. In this situation, who is taking and who is giving, or is the exchange mutual?
Blonding is a term for the peeling bark on ash trees due to emerald ash borer beetles. Ash trees are keystone species for Oregon waterways, and their destruction from the beetles has devastating impacts on the riparian areas.
Wildfires decrease tree density, which in turn reduces the natural filtering of rain, increasing erosion and allowing sediments with toxic levels of minerals and chemicals to leach into waterways.
This is a memorial for the losses of the land due to commodification (white colonial settler and post colonial practices).
detail shot
A detail shot with the altered meaning from holding memory to communicating a warning of impending danger.
Airborne pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, called “fog,” seep into the soil and water systems, spreading poisons that are both far reaching and long lasting.
Trees and soil store information about history, despite the ways that humans attempt to rewrite it. This piece is about preserving accurate historical information, in the face of constant corruption. On a personal note, this piece is about being adopted, not knowing my history, but having multiple experiences of being in a place that feels deeply familiar even though I have never been there before.
This explores the intrinsic ways nature preserves seeds and fosters new life.
Playing off the sentiment 'in the belly of the whale,' this speaks to being in a trapped place of ecological demise, but with hope for a reckoning.
This piece is about the experience of attempting to find roots in any possible way after displacement.
The top of this sculpture is based on the fungi, Clathrus ruber, a nutrient cycling fungus that is stinky but non-pathogenic to the ecosystem around it. The change to this component (from Roots Up, Roots Down) for the top of this sculpture signifies the shift from attempting to establish roots to attempting to create meaning where one is rooted.
Part of an installation series about the life cycle of salmon, and the interconnectedness of everything.
Part of an installation series - Hang it on the Line - about matriarchal lineage and the roles that women hold.
As an adoptee, my work draws on the complex bonds of family and identity. This series traces a path through matriarchal lineage, giving form to my lost personal history. It centers on the unsung taproot in my family tree through the imagery of laundry, which was and still is often seen as women’s work.
The clothesline itself serves as a symbol of attachment and bonds, with each piece literally and figuratively fastened to and connected by the line. Here the oppressive role of homemaking is airing out as the sense of duty shifts from generation to generation. Each piece is a portrait of these women embodying traces of personality and the specific contributions they had in shaping my life across time.
Making these forms with clay adds layers of visibility and void, allowing me to create works that are simultaneously solid and empty. The forms hover between presence and absence, capturing the complexities of belonging, loss, and connection. Overall, the installation merges the realm of past to present and engages viewers with the weight of heritage and intricacies of identity.
Part of an installation series - Queer Identities - each piece in this 12 piece series was made for a specific queer person who shared a story with me about an outfit or accessory that they were not allowed to wear or felt unsafe wearing. The pieces are life-sized replicas made as gifts for the person who shared their story.
This particular piece was the first story that inspired the series.
Photo credit: Saltstone Ceramics
This particular piece is representative of my own story.
Photo credit: Saltstone Ceramics
This particular piece is representative of an elder gay man’s story about the desire to and fear of flagging.
Sculpture made specific for a time based art performance of the same name. This was a life-sized ceramic chair made of stoneware with porcelain slip and gesso. The performance was in response to real life political nightmares and a desire to smash the patriarchy.
Photo credit: still from video filmed by cori mccullough