Statement

Exploring a path that intertwines ecology, land art, and photography, I create ephemeral installations with objects I make in my studio out of reclaimed materials, referencing the human-built environment. 

My experience while creating on the land is solitary, spontaneous, and lasts for just a matter of minutes. I carry the objects out to a location (some close to home, some on road trips), create the installation, document the geographic coordinates, take photographs with perspectives that manipulate the objects’ sizes and the surrounding elements, pack up the objects, and walk away. I embrace imperfections in the images that result from whatever weather and lighting conditions exist at the location and time, involving the conditions as collaborators.

Biography

The high plains of Cheyenne, Wyoming, have been my home for more than two decades. Originally from rural southeastern Colorado, I’ve lived most of my life in the American West with a few short years on the East Coast. A lifetime of exploring places on road trips across the North American continent has enhanced my love of wide-open spaces and vast skies. The natural and built environments I’ve seen along the way provide endless references for my ephemeral land installations

I earned my BFA in the History of Art, Highest Distinction, with a studio concentration in clay at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. I’ve exhibited my work throughout the United States; have had my work featured in books and articles; have won a Wyoming Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship along with a Wyoming Arts Council Visual Arts Honorable Mention; and was the inaugural recipient of the Al and Ann Simpson Fellowship at the Ucross Foundation Residency. An avid visitor of museums, land art sites, and petroglyphs, I find ideas in a variety of art forms but am most inspired by work in its original location that transcends time and place.

Image courtesy of Carl Largent, Ucross Foundation