“Ground” published in Kithe Joural, Fall/Winter 2021

COLLECTIONS

Collection of GHOSTS

This year I’ve become mobile, drifting in and out of landscapes. At gravel pull-outs I spy names written with paint markers across metal sign posts. On ridge trails I read names pattern into the smooth reddening skin of arbutus and the thick puzzle bark of ponderosa. I am witnessing our imprint on the land. The ephemeral I-was-here and the generation-long I-am-here.

By happenstance, I am retracing my footfalls from four years prior. I remembered a pull-out leading to a little path leading to a tree at the fork. This tree rose up like a swamp monster with exposed root legs and twisting branch arms. I never carved my name into the monster’s thigh. Never dug into the ground to bury a tin holding my secrets. I remembered this beast because, when I wasn’t looking, it traced its name on me.

This collection is the land writing its name onto our skin, begging to be remembered the way it was and asking to be protected for what it is.

First published in Stonecrop Magazine, Issue 04, Spring 2021.

Collection of WATERMAPS

How do we map something ever changing?

What happens when the boundaries recede or return?

WaterMaps is a collaborative exploration of place and history that reimagines glacial lake Missoula as a repository for calcium homes and wonder. Using encaustics, ceramics, wood, water, found maps, and poetry, this series asks viewers to interrogate the mythology of what an ancient lake might have held—and continues to hold—for inhabitants above and below the surface.

Collection of HAIGAGRAPH

Art, the postal system, and serendipity united Linds Sanders and Andrew Dugas. In 2012, Andrew began mailing his daily haikus to strangers, sending one from his home in San Francisco to Linds in Missoula, Montana. This postcard prompted Linds to pursue a similar project three years later. With Andrew’s direction, Linds sent original artworks through the mail to a stranger every day in 2016. To culminate their personal achievements they partnered for this collection of haiku-inspired artwork. In honor of their beginning, all the small works are 5 by 7 inches, the size of a postcard.

Collection of WHALESONG

Loss, grief, and the deep world of death resides in whales. Whales, like death, are vast and immoveable–there is no asking a whale to leave; there is only accepting a whale is there.

As I go into the woods there is a migration of humpback whales following me, accompanying me, being present with me.

Collection of FIRSTS

I must really like you to show you my beginnings.

These firsts accompanied my first apartment, my first cancer scare, my first solo art exhibition, and my first-middle-last years in college: circa 2008-2012.