My work centers on the natural world, and our connections and disconnections within this web. I draw, paint, print and make photos, depending on the project. My current practice zigzags between making photos for Alternative Technologies and drawings, prints and cyanotypes for Missing. Many of my recent projects explore issues of extinction, with several series focused on animals on the brink and environments at risk.
This central focus emerged years ago while spending a year and a half in remote forests in Costa Rica. A Fulbright scholarship enabled me to live in several research stations, exploring forest ecosystems and making images in response. That chance to live immersed in art while enmeshed in plant and animal lives changed me, and my understanding of our place in the world. Upon my return I was able to continue that immersion by arranging a long-term artist residency in the astonishing forests of Humboldt Redwoods and Prairie Creek State Parks. Although I’ve long since returned to the realities of regular life, I remain focused on those realms beyond our human preoccupations.
Although I majored in Philosophy, I was captivated by Drawing and Printmaking in the outstanding studio program at Carleton College. In graduate school, I swerved into installation work, earning an M.F.A. from the University of California at Berkeley.
I currently enjoy teaching Drawing at Smith College. Previously I taught Artists Books at Hampshire & Smith Colleges, Printmaking at Springfield College and Zea Mays Printmaking Studio, Drawing at Carleton College, and Art at Pelican Bay State Prison, a remote supermax facility near the northernmost redwood park in California.
I’m grateful to have the chance to make images; it’s a joy and a privilege to get to draw and paint, to construct and improvise, to print and photograph. Zea Mays Printmaking Studio provides a wonderful context and community for print projects. I deeply appreciate their mission of developing less toxic techniques combined with their generous spirit of shared learning and inspiration.
Collections: Boston Public Library; Decordova Art Museum; Hampshire College; Hood Art Museum; New York Public Library; Portland Museum of Art ; Smith College Museum of Art; University of the South; Wheaton College; Yale University Art Gallery
Honors:
Fulbright Scholarship
Anderson Ranch Art Center Scholarship
Marion Hahn Simpson Fellowship in Art
Sloan Fellowship in Science, Technology & Public Policy
Merit Scholarship
Education:
M.F.A. Art Practice, University of California at Berkeley
B.A. Philosophy, Carleton College magna cum laude