Catalog acts as my own personal curiosity cabinet where I was both a curator and an artist when assembling the piece. Hanging alongside some of the natural artifacts that I have amassed over the years were smaller artworks and sketches that I’ve created while exploring the themes of natural history and museum collections. I even snuck in an old Humpty Dumpty painting from my childhood.

Catalog was also an opportunity for me to show some favorite works including a few pieces from “Recordkeeping” and some metal sculptures made during art school.

I Collect is a participatory installation that asks visitors to respond to two questions: “what do you collect?” and “why do you collect it?” Folks write their answers on small tags and then hang them on the pegboard within the installation. The piece’s design is therefore dictated in part by the participants and evolves throughout the duration of an exhibit. It also allows viewers to read up on their community’s stories while they view the show.

In the installation piece Inventory, images of collected animal remains are mixed with details of an aging body. Hung together they document the tangible aspects of one’s life. Considered further, they represent the process of appraising life’s experiences.

Inventory includes over 1000 photographs printed on transparency film or photo rag paper and then cut to the dimensions of toe tags. Hung with black thread, they are hung from the ceiling or to the wall with entomology pins poked into foam strips. In recent years, tags that have been added have been made from upcycled, handmade paper and infused with encaustic wax.

Dimensions are approximately 30 feet by 6 feet but can vary depending on shape and space. 

Over 300 hand-sewn seeds accumulate to make up Disperse. Each seed has a photograph printed on one side - a moment, memory, joy that encouraged a pause. The flip side includes a word cut from monochrome material, often offering a reflection or contradiction to the image on the reverse. As a pile of seeds, the memories record a person’s life. Like seed dispersal, the hope is that these moments are released and shared.

The seeds are made with either Pictorico inkjet transparency and Duralar, or mulberry paper that has been infused with wax. While the text is cut with a die cutter, the seeds are cut and sewn by hand. A majority of the seeds include die cut figures or insects pinned with entomology pins as an extra surprise.

In an effort to move toward more sustainability, newer seeds are made with handmade, up-cycled paper and colored thread.

To see more videos on Disperse, visit the archives in Duluth Art Institute’s YouTube Channel

While building Contingent, I had in mind the changeover between seasons. Spring buds push through last year’s duff and there’s a contrast of color, bright against muted. To mimic evidence of this transition, elements of my recent artwork - encaustic-infused paper shaped int sculptural forms (Moult) along with colorful 3D hand sewn seeds (Disperse) - are regenerated into a new installation. In Contigent, the semi-transparent paper wraps around and protects a collection of the seeds before they are ready to burst forth. Below the seedpod, remnants pile up on the floor as a reminder of the previous season. These flower-like skeletons are made up of leftover Duralar sheets from making the original seeds, recycling the material into a new purpose.

Release is a nod toward process in nature, capturing the moment when a seed pod unwraps to reveal and let go of the multitude of its seeds into the world.

Materials used in Release include woven and cut paper, wire, sausage casings and roving wool. The piece can vary in size but is around 5’ x 9’ x 7.” The individual “organs” are around 6” x 5” x 3.”

Inspired by exoskeletons left behind by insects, the translucent forms in Moult hang unexpectedly in a space. Each piece is shaped to be reminiscent of other forms in nature, such as pupa, anemones and barnacles.

The primary material in Moult is mulberry paper infused with encaustic wax. Each piece is shaped through folding, creasing and reheating of the paper. Blue embroidery thread adds suture-like details to the skin.

Each shroud-like husk incorporates woven mulberry paper with graphite drawn or text written on one surface - either the warp or weft - before it is cut. Once the weaving process is complete, wire is added to the back to give the piece form. Each weaving is roughly 6 feet high, 3 feet wide and a few inches deep.

Fade was installed during the Duluth Art Institute’s “Strata” exhibit in the spring and summer of 2019, alongside works by Natalie Salminen Rude, Russell Prather and Juliane Shibata

The piece is an assemblage of encaustic boxes, a sewn figure and cut outs of wasps both on Duralar and Pictorico inkjet film. Hat pins hold the boxes at different distances to the wall.

Fade was created as part of my Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The primary goal for the grant was to make my work more three dimensional and this piece shows some of the early experiments with doing so.

“New, rare and interesting insects.”

This series of insect specimens is from the collection of Henry Gray. Each vintage box contains a pinned specimen that was hand-built with a combination of materials including fine art papers, thread, collage and cut-outs. All of them include anatomy reprinted from “Gray’s Anatomy” and a background that encourages dialogue between human and invertebrate worlds.

With a nod to natural history collections, the drawers in Coffer invite viewers to experience a different type of specimen. Each drawer offers an individual arrangement of artifacts that blends human figures with insects and birds, historical illustrations with modern photographs and paper cutouts with entomological pins and thread.

Coffer is a set of nine wooden drawers of varying widths and depths. The drawers protrude off the wall and the audience is encouraged to view them both from afar and up close, where they can open each drawer to reveal its interior. When installed as a unit, the approximate dimensions are 30 inches by 50 inches by 16 inches (depth).

Plates are modeled after historical natural history books that often paired descriptive text about a species alongside decorative illustrations to provide visual knowledge. These encyclopedic books opened up the wide world of nature for its readers, introducing wonder about and imposing control over the subjects. For the plates shown here, animal and human information and anatomy are intermingled to reflect on the contemporary human relationship to nature.

All of the Plates are two separate works on paper that hang together as a pair. Each piece in the pair is around 22x30 inches unframed.

In the palm of the hand’s right panel incorporates gouache, colored pencil and hand-sewn thread on Duralar. The text on the left panel is printed with archival pigment inks while the the stencils are created with shellac.

Likewise, An opportunity to display their parts has gouache, colored pencil and hand-sewn thread as well as graphite and pigment inks on the right panel. The left panel materials include shellac, graphite, collaged text and thread.

From the Collection is two separate lithographs with hand sewn embroidery thread. The text and border are printed on an inkjet printer.

Recordkeeping combines nine individual mixed media pieces, each with its own lighting unit that can be turned on and off using the center button console. Each single box includes a layered artwork clipped onto the outer surface, like an X-ray ready to be analyzed. With the light off, the top layer shows an anatomical element sewn onto a printed illustration, text or photograph. With the light on, an additional layer interacts with the image above it.  A lung is sewn onto a medical text. When the light is turned on, directions for how to inflate an insect are revealed.

With Recordkeeping, I am considering how the aging body becomes more and more subject to medical and scientific study much like an insect pinned in a display case. As an active participant in the display, a viewer can reflect on the varied connections between the human and nonhuman subjects.

Recordkeeping's dimensions are approximately 20 feet by 7 feet but can vary depending on space. Individual pieces can also be shown with individual switch plates.

As a naturalist, I enjoy collecting small artifacts from the natural world and pinning them in a shadow box for preservation, study and viewing. I am conflicted by this hobby, however, as it reveals human’s desire to categorize, quantify and control the world around us. Specimen refers to the collection of small insects but also offers up the human as a specimen. As I age, I find the body becomes more and more subject to medical and scientific study while we search for ways to defy the natural course of growing old. Being pinned on display for categorizing and quantifying can expose our vulnerabilities and our lack of control.

Specimen is a mixed media installation. Materials used include inkjet photographs and graphite drawings on paper, transparency and fabric, embroidery thread (insects), pins, lights, wood, wire and sausage casings.