Migrations 2018-2019

I visited the mist-filled mountains of Michoacán to witness the monarch butterfly migration in 1997. I went with a friend. We concocted the plan in San Miguel de Allende over coffee, and the next day we were on the road in her VW Golf. To see the monarchs is to witness a density of beauty that is unnerving. While one monarch amazes with its color, fragility, and symmetry, a forest-full operates at a very different scale. We went at dawn, before sunlight penetrated the forest. As we climbed higher, the paths were littered with the wings of fallen monarchs, and the trees looked as if they were wrapped in an invasive orange moss. As the sun began to hit, the orange moss would erupt into thousands of fluttering wings. It was spectacular. When I build larger works out of small parts, I think of the conversation between individual and group, part and whole, minute and vast, that the monarch migration began for me.

Raising Gold 2021

Diamond dust + fingerprints +graphite mirrors. I started working with graphite and raw diamonds in graduate school thinking about how they are relatives, genetic variations of one another, different iterations of carbon, different crystalline structures that make one material soft and one hard, one material used to write, record, story tell and one used as gemstone and cutting tool. What does forever mean? Is it as precarious as fingerprints in diamond dust or words scrawled on a page?

Thanks to Deirdre Visser and students at the college formerly known as Mills for this 2021 show exploring materials in relationship with one another.