Artist’s Statement
Earth Texts comprises a series of thirty-five wooden relief sculptures (carved, burned and painted with encaustic) that create visual metaphors of the book form as well as autobiographical explorations. Playing off concepts like frame narratives, in medias res, and earth digest, these pieces operate in one sense as visual puns and connect ideas of language to both earth and body.
Through interplay of forms each piece seeks to explore what we know or how we behave. Books embody text, and the “text” connects internal and external landscapes in a search for answers to human dilemmas. The plywood represents nature destroyed; construction of the art piece from the recycled plywood represents nature re-empowered or its pattern newly disclosed. The tactile paint surface, created through layers of encaustic (wax and pigment), serves as “skin,” unveiling greater complexity beneath.
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Artist’s Statement
Earth Texts comprises a series of thirty-five wooden relief sculptures (carved, burned and painted with encaustic) that create visual metaphors of the book form as well as autobiographical explorations. Playing off concepts like frame narratives, in medias res, and earth digest, these pieces operate in one sense as visual puns and connect ideas of language to both earth and body.
Through interplay of forms each piece seeks to explore what we know or how we behave. Books embody text, and the “text” connects internal and external landscapes in a search for answers to human dilemmas. The plywood represents nature destroyed; construction of the art piece from the recycled plywood represents nature re-empowered or its pattern newly disclosed. The tactile paint surface, created through layers of encaustic (wax and pigment), serves as “skin,” unveiling greater complexity beneath.
Frame Narratives plays with the idea of a story in which another story is enclosed or embedded, a “tale within the tale.” The largest and outermost frame of the open book is carved and painted with textures and colors similar to lichens growing on the bark of ash trees. The embedded frames allude to sun-filled skies, recall black granite, signify art/culture (gilded frame), and place dry animal vertebra in a seemingly wet and reflective surface. The innermost frame, a thick layer of flesh-like beeswax poured on top a grass-green colored base, surrounds a section of the gallery wall. From behind this frame emerges another tale: a tail of human hair tied together with an animal bone. Each story links animal/vegetable/mineral and nature with culture, creating a meta-fictional landscape filled with reminders of death. In Media Res, Latin for “into the middle of things,” describes a narrative that begins somewhere in the middle of a story, typically at some crucial point in the action. Two pages, extending out from the middle of the book, retell my journey through Yellowstone Park and describe topography reminiscent of the park’s largest hot spring. Shaped through contrasting thermal fields the hot spring becomes a metaphor for forces that bring about change in our lives. Human interaction like our relationship with nature can be harmonious and unifying or antagonistic and cataclysmic. Layers of marks both reveal and conceal the natural grain of the wood, comparing the meaning and permanence of nature’s marks with those of human marks. The mouth of Sticks & Stones gaps open on the face of a scared and sutured landscape where stick-pencil teeth devour sticks, stones, and animal bones. Effective communication is often elusive: the best intentions can end in unwanted consequences. Similarly our interactions with nature, at worst, can produce deadly results. Our stories often parallel processes or “stories” in nature. Like books these pieces request a reading, and the layers of text allow layers of interpretation.
Earth Texts travels in boxes designed for shipping by common carrier. The exhibition fills up to 300 running feet of gallery wall space. Gallery directors interested in hosting the exhibit need pay only for shipping and insurance. For additional information, contact Kristy Deetz.
Book Binding
Recycled Wood, Carving, Human Hair, Stones, Sticks, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2003
Collected Tales
Recycled Wood, Carving, Human Hair, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2002
Font
Recycled Wood, Carving, Bark with Likens, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2001
Sticks & Stones
Recycled Wood, Carving, Sutures, Stones, Pencil Sticks, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
Reading Circle
Recycled Wood, Carving, Tree Branch Slices, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2009
Needles(s) Text
Recycled Wood, Carving, Pine Needles, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
Subtext
Recycled Wood, Carving, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2003
Table of Contents
Recycled Wood, Carving, Gilded Table with Saw Dust from Carving Piece, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2003
Glossalalia
Recycled Wood, Carving, Human Hair, Beeswax, Varnish, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
Spiral Bound
Recycled Wood, Carving, Human Hair, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2003
Nested Narrative
Recycled Wood, Carving, Bird’s Nest, Stones, Sticks, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2005
Handbook
Recycled Wood, Carving, Sticks, Gold Leaf, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2003
Aporia
Recycled Wood, Carving, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2005
Spine
Recycled Wood, Carving, Stones, Goat Hair, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2011
Touchstones
Recycled Wood, Carving, Stones, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2007
Tabula Rasa
Recycled Wood, Carving, Sticks, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2007
In Medias Res
Recycled Wood, Carving, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
Frame Narratives
Recycled Wood, Carving, Frames, Human Hair, Stones, Bones, Sticks, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
Equivocation
Recycled Wood, Carving, Inlay Faux Wood Panel, Oil Paint, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2011
Earth Digest
Recycled Wood, Carving, Stones, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2003
Book Burning
Recycled Wood, Carving, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2004
Book Mark
Recycled Wood, Carving, Beads, Gold Leaf, Stick, Beeswax, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2002
Abridged
Recycled Wood, Carving, Boar’s Hair, Super Glue, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2005
Missing Leaf
Recycled Wood, Carving, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
Hair Raising Tale
Recycled Wood, Carving, Beeswaxed Human Hair, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
The Faux Fall
Recycled Wood, Carving, Faux Hair, Plastic Apple, Stick, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010
Guide
Recycled Wood, Carving, Sticks, Thread, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2001
Volcanic Ellipsis
Recycled Wood, Carving, Burned Stick, Encaustic, 20″x20″x6″, 2010