Installation at The Hive in Prescott, AZ. 2024.
From left to right~
Map of the Known Universe (small sculpture and print below on table)
Starlight (tapestry)
Lunar Garden: Untitled (hanging sculpture)
Lake of Dreams (weaving with print behind)
Tree Cloth: Pinus ponderosa (woven strips and paper on wall)
Song for Trees (front hanging sculpture)
The Hive:
In the foreground is the site-specific installation Song for Trees, 2024. It is three spiraling columns of looped played guitar strings held together by painted screens, each one twelve feet tall and three feet in diameter. Working with played guitar strings over the past two decades always makes me feel like I am conducting a silent orchestra made up of notes played by many musicians who never knew one another. It is as if the residual notes leave behind a form.
Starlight
Starlight is the oldest work in this exhibition. It is made of silk thread dyed in the ikat tradition and woven as a warp-predominate tapestry. It was inspired by a very bright star on a dark night camping alone in the deep forests of the White Mountains in Arizona. The surface is enhanced by putting the whole tapestry through a printing press to flatten and embed the warp and weft into each other.
Lake of Dreams
Lake of Dreams is composed of dyed silk threads woven in an open gauze weave in the tradition of ancient Peruvian gauzes. Little pieces of printed Japanese tissue paper are folded over weft threads. Hanging behind the textile is a monotype with encaustic. Part of an ongoing series called Places on the Moon, it is inspired by contemplating the pull of the moon on our physical planet and on our subconscious. You can see more of this series further HERE.
Tree Cloth: Pinus ponderosa
Tree Cloth was woven in response to the illness of a very old ponderosa dear to me. Like cloths woven to honor a sacred tree in India, this cloth is intended to protect and honor. The strips of dyed silk are a densely woven warp-predominant cloth with inlay. The scaffolding holding the crumpled mono-printed papers was woven on my tapestry loom to stand in for bark. The bark and pine cones seen below suggest the relationship of cloth to tree.