pieces

Inside

Saguaro National Park, AZ

This piece depicts a portion of a blocky granite with vertical fracturing and cleavage (planes the rock broke in). The outcrop has a sharp contact zone with darker, finer grained rock beside it, characteristic of a chilled margin at a fault zone, where hot magma cools quickly.

I am curious about the double meaning of “fault” as both a slippage and a responsibility. In the context of global climate change and environmental injustice I look to my own hands, and the hands of humans like me, whose folds and puckers echo the granite’s segmentation and ripples.

Pastel on cardboard

Contain

The creases and rises of a human hand echo the valleys and mountains of the Arizona landscape, equal parts familiar and alien terrain. What happens when we artificially divide “civilization” from “wilderness” and exempt ourselves from the bounds of nature?

Pastel on cardboard

Embody

Petrified Wood National Forest, AZ

Petrified wood forms when a tree is buried in sediment and groundwater saturated with minerals flows around it, gradually replacing the original plant material. The resulting fossil is often as beautifully colored as a painter’s palette.

Pastel on cardboard

I

The bands of light and color around my iris parallel the rings of age that form in trees. What do we see in our lifetimes, and how do our bodies document the resulting growth?

Pastel on cardboard

Blocks

Grand Canyon, Hermit’s Rest Trail, Grand Canyon Village, AZ

The outcrop depicted in this piece was most likely a part of the Coconino Sandstone, a layer in the Grand Canyon formed by eolian (wind-driven) processes and overlain by the Toroweap Formation and Kaibab Limestone.

Pastel on cardboard

Gridded

Dobbins Lookout, South Mountain, Phoenix AZ

The view of Phoenix from above echoes mineral structures, protruding outcrops, the linearity of fracture patterns. From here, our human lives appear at once organized and sprawling, our towers like distant hoodoos and our houses finely sorted grains.

Pastel on cardboard

Conglomerate

A conglomerate is a coarse-grained sedimentary rock with large, rounded clasts. The structure of this piece feels reminiscent of this type, with its blocked out chunks of color and texture. I like working with laundry lint because it’s such a delicate and gross textile byproduct of human life. It very clearly documents our cycles (literal and metaphorical) of living, and the things we leave behind.

Laundry lint on cardstock

Prehistoric

This piece consists of a sculpted stone tool-turned water bottle. I am curious about the way my generation relates to “nature” and the consumerism surrounding pursuits in the outdoors. There is a development of a sort of wilderness chic, a particular uniform of (expensive, branded) gear that signals wealth and experience. Here my impressions and experiences of outdoor adventure merge into one artifact that is both aesthetic and deeply impractical.

Additionally, stone tools of this size enabled ancient hominids to travel long distances (while still hunting for food) just as a water bottle allows modern Homo sapiens to bring sustenance to the backcountry.

Glazed ceramic and charcoal