My work explores interconnected systems of biology and physiology. I have become acutely aware of my body being part of a larger environment as I ventured into pregnancy and motherhood. Our bodies are open systems that continually interact with the landscapes we inhabit. I actively integrate human beings into the larger ecosystem by collaging prints of organs, tissues, and other human anatomy into prints of botanical or zoological forms. My work as an artist explores the mutuality between the world and the bodies it continually shapes. Using drawing, relief carving, and printing, I transform imagery of the body or landscape into shifting and evolving compositions.
I use reduction printing to look closely at the fascinating world of natural organisms in and around my home in Belgrade, Maine: a rosy maple moth on my studio window screen; a meadow hawk dragonfly resting on a ledge; a monarch caterpillar feeding on milkweed in my bathroom. These encounters have inspired an iterative routine: observe, draw, carve into wood, mix color, print layer, repeat. With this process, I bring into being the catalog of observational prints that represent my close relationship with this place. I group images, cut them up, and recombine them into dynamic and vivacious compositions. At this point, intuition and emotion drive the combinations of imagery. It is overwhelming and wonderful and terrifying to be a part of the world and a living ecosystem.