What We Gathered
What We Gathered is rooted in the landscapes where I wander, forests, riverbanks, neighborhood streets, and urban parks, where feathers, bottle caps, fossils, seeds, and bits of glass and plastic catch my eye like quiet offerings. Driven by curiosity, I gather the beautiful and lamentable remnants set forth in the landscape: the debris of our modern presence, and the living traces of insects, plants, and animals that navigate these shifting ecosystems.
Collecting is my way of paying attention. It is how I learn the rhythms of the land and witness both its abundance and the mounting pressures we place upon it, pollution, extraction, habitat loss, and the slow unthreading of fragile ecologies. Some sculptural compositions are shaped not only by what I observe and gather, but by historical research that traces earlier patterns of settlement, resource use, and environmental change. These histories surface in the present landscape, revealing the legacies we carry forward and the vulnerabilities we continue to create.
The sculptures in this series emerge from these gathered materials and stories. Using clay, an earthen substance that carries its own geological memory, I build still-life groupings where natural and manufactured forms are placed in direct conversation. Each arrangement becomes a field note, recording of my observations as I live and work in the Midwest, a quarter of the way through the 21st century. What We Gathered is a quiet ode to wandering, noticing, and the tangled relationship between our past and present lives and the land that sustains us.
The creation of this work was supported by grants from the IU Institute for Advanced Study, Herron School of Art Alice and Robert Schloss Faculty Support Fund, and Indy Arts Council Creative Renewal Grant.