ARTIST STATEMENT

Change is the inevitable state in which we live, and I’ve always been interested in the liminal spaces which occupy something’s beginning and its end. A nascent living being with boundless latent potential, becomes fully manifest over time, and leaves indelible traces of its existence in its wake. We see this process play out perennially in nature, and in our own lives. Seeing it, I consider the feelings of loss and longing that often emerge from change, balanced with simultaneous anticipation for myriad new possibilities. 

This series began in anticipation of leaving my mountain home, with the precious forest I had nurtured for over 5 years. 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 acids and bases. 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, we leave traces throughout a greater sphere of influence that endure. 

PROCESS & EDITION INFORMATION: 

Archival Pigment Prints on Watercolor Paper: 

3 A/P’s 17” x 22” 

EDITION of 10 + 2 A/P’s, 22” x 30” (full sheet, actual size)

EDITION of 5 + 2 A/P’s, 8” x 11” 

EDITION of 5, 50” x 70” (also available on Silk)