"How to Unlearn Drawing," 8.5” x 11,” markers, digital prints on paper, 2021, 38-page color printed zine with my illustration and writing. Zine contains content about histories of perception and how in order to actually learn drawing, we need to unlearn idealized preconceptions, which allows us to learn for ourselves. There are also a few perception/drawing exercises. The layout is inspired by the 4mat system pedagogy of activist/artist Mother Cyborg when I recently did the Conversations in Practice, Ox-Bow Residency.
Vortex, 2020, 15 x 12 x 3 inches, acrylic and collage on repurposed book.
Tulip Descent, 2019, upcycled book, woodcut print, acrylic, markers, ballpoint pen, colored pencil, watercolor, highlighters, duct tape, scotch tape, packing tape, Elmer’s glue, puzzle pieces, and a quarry, 14 x 9 x 1 inches.
Art, Magic, and the Anthropocene,
2018,
repurposed book, found materials, digital prints, acrylic, markers, ballpoint pen, colored pencil, watercolor, highlighters, duct tape, scotch tape, packing tape, and Elmer’s glue,
11 x 9 x 3 inches,
The writing in this book serves as an archetypal tarot roadmap of flora and fauna that demonstrate how humans are transitioning into an era referred to as the anthropocene and how art functions as magic to invoke a future we want to step into. The bowerbird, the angular fish, gut flora, fireflies, and ghost pipes summon conversations around magical thinking, ecofeminism, and art making. I first wrote the article and then worked on symbolic drawings for the themes. I printed the illustrated text and turned the essay into a tactile individual artist book.
A Day in the Life of America, 2017, repurposed book, found materials, digital prints, acrylic, markers, sharpie, ballpoint pen, watercolor, highlighters, duct tape, scotch tape, Elmer’s Glue, 11 x 9 x 3 inches, A Day in the Life of America is a photojournalist book project from 1987. I discovered it for 80 cents in a Salvation Army this summer. It is a compilation of hundreds of images from hundreds of photographers taken one day in May as a survey to represent the United States. I have taken this book with me on personal travels of the US to destination points New Orleans, Louisiana, St. Louis, Missouri, and Salem, Massachusetts. I have cut, collaged, painted, and taped into this book along the way to respond to my own travels of hot spots in the country that have experienced violence and religious persecution of women and otherness. In a sense, this project is an exorcism of cultural imbalances and a journey into the dark feminine. It is also my subjective psychic limits imposed on a project presented as objective and an attempted reconciliation of the two. Through this particular yet meandering travel and making in response to place, I play with the modernist logics of pyschogeography and ecofeminism and put intention for new value in the object. This shot shows the book as a sculpture, a body intended to be viewed and splayed in addition to the pages being individually handled and read as sequential images.
A Day in the Life of America, Detail.
A Day in the Life of America, Detail.
Inanimate, 2021, acrylic and found prints on repurposed book, 12 x 8 x 12 inches
Communion Droplet, 2017, 17 x 8 x 1 inches, repurposed book, found material, acrylic, marker, highlighters, Elmer's glue, Communion Droplet, 2017, 17 x 8 x 1 inches, repurposed book, found material, acrylic, marker, highlighters, Elmer's glue, This book was originally a Washington DC Memorial book that has military air pilots signatures on the opening page, perhaps intended to be a gift.
Communion Droplet, Detail.
Meteorite, Meteor, Meteoroid (Mammals), 2017, repurposed book, digital prints, acrylic, markers, sharpie, ballpoint pen, watercolor, highlighters, duct tape, scotch tape, Elmer’s Glue, 8 x 6 x 1 inches,
Meteorite, Meteor, Meteoroid (Mammals) plays with the alchemical properties of matter, particularly a metal from space and its relation to the mammal body. A meteoroid is a small body moving through space. A meteor, or shooting star, is a small body of matter that heats as it enters the earth’s atmosphere. A meteorite is the surviving mass that hits the earth and mostly becomes rock or metal usually iron and nickel. If a meteor shifts into these different physical properties through space what happens to the body when we enter into and shift from this life.
Obsidian, 2017, 8 x 5 x 1 inches, repurposed book, collage, acrylic, highlighters, gel pens, Elmer's glue.
The Tales of Embarrassing Dead Magic (Revived), 2017, repurposed book, collage, marker, acrylic, Elmer’s glue, 8 x 5 x 1 inches, This book was Feng Shui for Business. I have collaged and embedded the pages with fiery colors and repeating droplet symbols to purge the print as a traditional Chinese philosophical system has been appropriated for Western business.
Z Arrow, Upcycled Book, tinfoil, pen, sharpie, watercolor, digital print, 10 x 5 x 3 inches, 2019
Ascension Trail, 2019, woodcut print, acrylic, markers, ballpoint pen, colored pencil, watercolor, highlighters, duct tape, scotch tape, packing tape, Elmer’s glue, puzzle pieces, and a quarry, 14 x 9 x 1 inches.
Installation from Richard and Dolly Maass Gallery, Purchase College, 2017
