Driftless: Can't See the Forest for the Trees
My approach to imagery is corporeal. Seeking the smaller picture, I am fascinated by the minutiae of living things in primitive states. I personify forms from nature and the human body, drawn to manifestations of force action and reaction. As if complicit, objects become verbs: skin recoils, flesh droops, lianas choke and fungi cling; tree bark scars leaving crusty scabs, orifices pucker, grab and engulf. Walking through the forest, my world is incarnate.
The Driftless Region of the Midwest is the area left unglaciated by the last period of the ice age, over 10,000 years ago. The geology of the area was carved by rivers and has a unique topography. Driftless: Can't See the Forest for the Trees resulted in three projects: Tumbleweed, Birch Eyes and Weeping Willow. Valuing imperfection, my attempts to mimic are deliberately crude. I liken the painstaking handiwork of human endeavor to the obsessive industry of the forest. My methods homage nature’s in form and process, but the synthetic vocabulary is distinctly man made.
Driftless
Resembling: tumbleweed, knotted hair, sparrows’ nests, rats’ nests, beehives, scribbles, cherry blossoms, almond blossoms, thatch, basket weave, tornados, cross-hatching, twisters, whirlpools, swallows’ nests, pig sties, squirrels’ nests, a-frames, lean-tos, log cabins, cocoons, chrysalises, pupas, trash heaps, beavers’ dens, spiders’ webs, cob webs, river eddies, dustbowls
Structure: temporal, fragile, biodegradable, breakable, perishable, fetishistic, flexible, lenient, bendable, tangled
Process: painstaking, tedious, repetitive, obsessive, artisanal, cumulative, continuous, picayune
Like: nitpicking, bricklaying, thatching, weaving, stitching, knotting, crocheting, braiding, lanyard, macramé, nail-biting, cuticle-picking, scratching, licking, smoothing, patting, spinning
Materials: sticks, wire, paper, glue, string, band-aids, gauze, vines, lianas, trees of heaven