Artistic Research

For the past few years my artistic research has centered on how one’s method of movement through a landscape impacts our perception of it, and how we remember the places we have been. This has resulted in various interconnected, ongoing bodies of work: pieces about memories sparked by location; pieces about forgetting places we have been over time; pieces based on the satellite imagery of places important to me; and pieces about the interconnectedness of different places and the way memories of those places intermingle in my mind. The pandemic inspired the creation of 3D textile embroidered Worry Stones, a series that is ongoing. My methods are firmly based in printmaking, but also include textiles and embroidery. I choose different techniques based on the needs of the image, so I am not tied to a specific type of printmaking. My favorite and most utilized techniques include relief printing, photolithography, and screenprinting. Different techniques are often combined in my work.

         I began to focus on traveling through landscapes because of the numerous drives I have made between Kansas and Texas, and the daily walks to and from the art building from my apartment in graduate school. My love of road trips and hiking gave me a trove of imagery and memories to pull from. I continue to travel and hike, which only adds to the experiences that inspire my work. My appreciation for the natural world—which is so prevalent in my work—has been heightened by my biology background. The books I read often deal with traveling through different landscapes or information about the natural environment including the biology and ecology of various places.

         My Landmarks series includes satellite-image based prints that use landmarks such as rivers, lakes, and coastlines as the starting point. I emphasize these landmarks to the point that they become obscured, which creates a very abstracted, linear image that references topography without being topographical. This series is relief-printed, allowing for very distinct edges to the lines not found in other forms of printmaking; the relief blocks themselves also become a landscape of mesas and valleys. These images can stand on their own, but I also incorporate the relief prints into other pieces.

         I use relief-printed fabric to create my Worry Stones by embroidering along the printed lines. The embroidered areas are sewn into 3D objects. I work on the stones intuitively, thinking mostly about the tactility of the objects and the textures the different stitches have. The shapes are not necessarily stone-like and calling them worry stones somewhat belies these objects’ appearance, however they are meant to be used as a worry stone; to be objects of comfort.

         Embroidery also appears in the decorative borders of Prints About Forgetting. The borders in these prints reference the formatting of old photographs in order to achieve a sense of nostalgia. The images within the borders speak to the desire to remember a place and the longing to go back. These pieces are oriented in such a way that challenges the viewer to spend time sorting out what they are a looking at—just as it can take time to dredge up an old memory. The color drains from the image just as memories fade.

         Some of my work also explores how one place can prompt memories of another. These works combine aspects of one place with those from another through digital manipulation of images and/or the combination of different print processes. My largest pieces are assemblages of the satellite-image based relief prints and photolithographs of details of the places referenced by the relief prints. Through these works, I investigate how small details of places leave a stronger impression on me than vast landscape views and how memories of these places intermingle in my mind. These projects use quilt structures to reference the comfort I feel while out in nature and how different places are more interconnected than they may seem.