mountain energy

plant pigment dyed and earth mineral plant acrylic painted organic cotton, linen and hemp, antique french metal thread on wood panel

16.5 × 32.25 (vintage MCM wood frame)

Ancient mountains, colored by the old setting sun, hold stories of how it all began. The outlines threaded by power lines, our modern necessity. Trees, the mountain’s offspring, stripped bare and rootless, made to carry the wires that dance across the landscape, speaking a wholly new language.

I am always drawn to this tension, the discordant nature of it.

An encroachment upon a natural space, yet somehow feels like a dance between two worlds. In certain landscapes it looks as though the mountain itself is feeding the power lines. When the poles are born from logging the very forest that once stood there, the connection becomes greater in the strangest of ways. I know it’s wishful thinking. Power lines in mountainous areas continue to create great danger to the world. But it is this tension, between the primordial and the anthropogenic, the wild and and the wired that I wanted to capture in this latest piece.

Inspiration arrives in many forms — an inner or outer landscape, a poem that shifts my perspective, words and symbols deeply felt. Wherever the muse appears, working with natural dyes, earth minerals and textiles is a joy-making process.

Sewing is my first love, but collage opened a floodgate. It offers a freedom to experiment with shape and scale that sewing doesn’t readily allow. I love both: the clean closed seam and the raw cut edge — each a metaphor for life. Moving between them keeps my creative center alive.

The collages begin with natural dyed textiles. The hand dyed fabrics are then painted with pigments and oxides I hand-blend into plant-based acrylic, creating bespoke colors. I build up multiple layers to create desired opacity and depth of color on flax linen, organic cotton and/or hemp, then hand-cut the dried forms and collage them onto wooden panels using natural adhesives. A coat of plant-based varnish finishes the work — framed and ready to hang.

note: please hang away from direct exposure to harsh light (natural/artificial) as well as direct heat source and areas of high moisture.

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