Solo Exhibition Foster-White Gallery June 2 – 25, 2022
First Thursday Reception June 2, 6-8 p.m. PST

At the edge of the suburban neighborhood is a ravine, a wild place amidst the tended. A path descends through horsetail and bracken ferns past big-leaf maples, skirts a patch of nettles, and crosses the railroad tracks before reaching the shore of Puget Sound. There I am greeted by the smell of the sea and sound of waves. I see tug boats and cruise ships crossing the water, and hope for a glimpse of our other neighbors, the sea lions, porpoises, and orcas who share this home along the Salish Sea.

Between these two worlds, the natural and the built, lives are lived, rubbing up against each other. Summer low tides reveal mysteries as trains thunder past. In the winter dark, dog-walkers hunch their shoulders against the cold mist and think of warm fireplaces. In these moments it is easy to forget the imminent threats to this fragile ecosystem posed by climate change and the contradictions inherent in living alongside nature’s gifts.

Artist statement continued below

 

Artist statement continued.

This sense of place permeates my studio. Leaves and fronds gathered from my walks are captured with dye on fabric, their yearly cycle of growth and death frozen in time. Rubbings taken from antique table linens lie next to those of cedar bark. The angles of built structures are reinterpreted in the folded edges of silks, linen, velvet. I use ice to split colors into their molecular components, its melting carrying the dyes through the fabric.

Two-plus decades into this craft, I still experience a pure, alchemical thrill when unfolding and washing out these fabrics to see what the dye has writ. Capturing and combining these marks continues to bring me to the studio with freshness and a passion for discovery.

As an artist and a steward of my small piece of land, my work is to hold up a mirror to the natural beauty that surrounds us and encourage its preservation. We are beholden to look beyond our fences to the global environmental changes that push into our comfort and endanger the future of this land we inhabit.