Artist's Statement

 

 

The Midwest is flyover country according to most news organizations; nothing of note to be considered, but I have found a rich and infinity complex biome on the land outside my door. I live in a 15-acre woodlot in Ohio’s Great Black Swamp. Every day, no matter the weather, I walk and photograph the macro and the minutia in my surrounding environment. I am struck by the clash between the speed of the external digital world, and my sanctuary-bubble where the slow and steady reclamation of human-abandoned fields by the natural world continues on relentlessly without my intervention. Poison Ivy, wild strawberries, Virginia creeper, ash saplings and thistle repopulate lawns once wrenched from the rich black Ohio soil. Any tiny space that is left “unimproved” by weed killer or asphalt becomes a complex and layered miniature biome for mosses and insects. I use these images as touchstones for my artworks. I layer pattern and color over grids of digital printer calibration sheets and discarded photographs.  I reclaim the discarded digital images with my stylized flora, like nature reclaiming a raised building site. I borrow shapes and patterns from nature but rather than duplicate what I see, I strive to create an impression of the rich visual tapestry I experience during my time in nature.