2024
Seattle Art Fair:
Century Link Event Center
Seattle, Washington
July 25th - 28th, 2024
2023
Surge: Mapping Transition, Displacement, and Agency in Times of Climate Change
MUSEUM OF NORTHWEST ART
LaConner, Washington
October 14th, 2023 - January 21st, 2024
This sculpture has two stories to tell
The first is one of human emotion and our connection to the land. When wildfire comes and the sky is filled with smoke, the world shrinks and days are defined by a growing sense of despair. When the forest around you is burning, it is easy to think only of fire as a force of destruction and loss. Taking a longer view, we are reminded that fire is a natural part of the cycle and when in balance, necessary to bring new life. When I venture out into the Pasayten and Sawtooth wilderness areas, an overwhelming amount of space is dominated by countless charred toothpicks. Yet after time has passed, I am also struck by how robust the recovery can be and by nature’s capacity to heal; the surge of new growth fed by a fresh start and the gift of snowpack. I have come to see the landscape around me as similar to my own life: a scar here and there, the pain of loss and grief, and yet I reach for the hope of regeneration and life to begin anew. I seek out high alpine lakes, our pristine and precious water banks as a source of inspiration for my artwork and outlook on life. Fire brings loss but also sparks new life, and water is our hope that there will be new growth once more.
Science tells our second story with the clarity of numbers: over 62% of the forests in the Methow Valley have burned at some point in the last 20 years. We are living in a time of fire out of balance and there is reason to fear this trend will continue. A recent publication by David Peterson shows the range of potential futures on the west coast as we deal with climate change, and the correlation between fire and water and the potential for an increasingly negative feedback loop are the dominant themes. The high-risk scenarios projected in the models show the potential for increasing fire cycles, shrinking snow-packs, warming rivers, and repeat burns of the same forest within shorter time frames. If climate change continues at an aggressive pace, there is diminishing potential for fire and water cycles to be restored to a place of balance. To understand the human role in the equation: First we contributed to the current wildfire crisis by excluding fire through strict suppression policies for many decades, which allowed fuels to accumulate, making large, intense fires inevitable. Looking to the future, we can make the forests and local communities more resilient through fuel reductions and forest density management. We must adapt before it is too late.
We have lost a great deal and are entering a time of climate uncertainty where we will likely lose more. This sculpture is a vessel for all that remains. May we use our time on this planet wisely.
2021
Living Inside a Reflection
TRAVER GALLERY
Seattle, WA
November 4th - December 23rd 2021
Reflections create endless variations of their surroundings, and depending on the amount of cloud cover or wind or the angle of the sun, the landscape can appear as a near-identical copy or a complete abstraction. Reflections are constantly changing as they transition through a liminal space of barely recognizable shapes, mysterious layers of colors and the interplay of the world above and the world below peeking through. They are also a metaphor for our own lives and the many ways we see only part of reality depending on how we look at things. This show is an escape in to the hopeful colors and beautiful abstractions of reflections in water.
PAST SHOWS
Balance
TRAVER GALLERY
Seattle, WA
November 7th - December 23rd 2019
Fire is not wrong
Nature wants to heal like she has healed me so many times
Recycle the char of trauma in to the birth of something new
Regenerate from the solace of water
crystalline layers whispering eternal colors of hope
Balance still exists deep in the wilderness
on a timeline far beyond any one lifetime
Ancient cycles of life and death
Destruction and creation
Are we - the great disrupters - continuing in this ever-unfolding story?
Or left out - the non-cooperating no longer collaborating
Nature always wins
with or without us
Pray for balance and learn to be a part of it
Liminality was originally most often used to describe a specific stage in rituals tied to cultural contexts, I am using this word to speak of an evanescent and fluid state of mind found in a more personal ritual.
“Liminality may perhaps be regarded…as a realm of pure possibility whence novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise” – Victor Turner
I find it most often in the studio and the deeper I go into the mountains. The symbiosis of studio and sojourn creates a profound conversation between raw experience and deeper contemplation as I bring elements of wild space to life in a painting. Liminal creatures such as the fox figure prominently in mythology as shapeshifters and spirit guides, while images of shadows, reflections on water, bridges, transitional moments between seasons, death/rebirth, and the eclipse capture a blurry boundary between worlds.
While these transitory situations can include periods of uncertainty, anguish, or even the existential fear of facing the abyss in void, they can also serve as a path towards renewal. In a liminal space, attachments to one world or the other blur and dissolve, and in the midst of that disorientation there is a heightened possibility for new perspectives. At times when I feel overwhelmed by the pieces of my life not fitting together, a liminal space can create a temporarily fluid and malleable perspective on life, opening possibilities to deconstruct old ideas and attachments. To quote Jung, "What takes place in the dark phase of liminality is a process of breaking down...in the interest of 'making whole' one's meaning, purpose, and sense of relatedness once more."
In the interest of making whole, find something pure in the world and visit it often.
Immerse yourself fully and get lost there for a while
May we all be filled with wonder and reverence
Wild Nearby
BURKE MUSEUM
Seattle, WA
Saturday, June 18, 2016- Sunday, April 7th, 2017
Few places on earth rival the rugged beauty and biological diversity of Washington state's North Cascades mountain range. In Wild Nearby, immerse yourself in the sights, sounds and stories of one of the largest wildlands in the U.S. Step in to a full-scale replica of a fire lookout. Hold wolverine, deer and coyote skulls. Examine ancient artifacts from the Upper Skagit Tribe. Learn what woodpeckers, wildflowers and frogs can tell us about how the region is changing, and map your next Northwest outdoor adventure. This show was created through a collaboration between Mountaineers Books and the Burke Museum.
This project started as a cathartic process, and like all good projects, evolved and took on new layers of meaning that continue to deepen. It is not an entirely rational project, but it has given me a profound outlet to work through the most difficult challenge of my life. I’m sharing it with the world because I believe in healing, and the mountains are where I found home again.
In the wake of my divorce followed by my young son moving four hours away, I sought solace from the ensuing emotional crisis in the North Cascade mountains. The vast silence of raw wilderness gave me a place to bring calm to a troubled mind. Empowering solitude led me to the stories of three poets; Gary Snyder, Phillip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac, who spent summers in the 1950’s as fire lookouts experiencing their own profound personal transformations. The simple Lookout cabin, one of the Pacific Northwest’s most iconic hermitages, became a crystalized form that could encapsulate the sanctuary that I too found in the high peaks.
And then I decided to build one.
Among the many metaphors that can be inferred from this symbolic structure, I resonate most with the quiet shelter it provides me to look deeper within while being surrounded by untarnished wilderness. In the parallel solitude of the studio, I have been layering abstract drawings that are an intuitive and subconscious emotional release with paintings that are an interpretation of places where I have found solace. The paintings that compliment the Lookout are in effect windows into my healing, and offer the viewer an opportunity to contemplate their own place-based stories of recovery, inspiration, and empowerment.
To see this project in its entirety, please join me at the Traver Gallery in downtown Seattle on opening night, November 5th 2015. The show runs through December 23rd. This Lookout will reappear in the gallery along with 12 paintings that explore the transformative power of mountain solitude.
I would like to thank TwispWorks for providing a place for this project to manifest. The windows in this Lookout and some of the reclaimed wood are original items from the neighboring Fire Warehouse, which was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s.
All of us are aware, on some level, of our own balancing act with Nature. As I contemplate the degree to which humans are a part of nature vs. uniquely outside of nature, all of the man made inventions that surround me either increase my connection with nature or create greater separation. Civilization itself could be the greatest thing ever invented or, paradoxically, the very thing that bring us to destroy our own habitat. This installation hangs in the tension of that dynamic by juxtaposing the advance of technological invention against nature’s inherent tendency to reclaim any space not overly controlled by man. Left to it’s own devices, Nature Always Wins.