Being from Western Maryland, where there was a huge paper mill called Westvaco, I was influenced by the production of paper from an early age. Then, a bit later, an undergraduate printmaking course introduced me to making art using blended rag paper pulp. In graduate school, my sculpture professor made her work out of paper and wood; she took us to Twin Rocker in Indiana, where they built a custom Hollander Beater for us, which we installed and used almost nonstop at Notre Dame University. Fast-forward to 2019: while finishing up my career as an art professor, I took advantage of Helen’s new studio location to work with paper again.
The forest and all the beings living in it have been the focus of my work for many years. I research the landscape used in my work. Knowing the story of the forest and how all its beings behave together - sharing nutrients, information, and life is my incentive. I often look at forest beings through my digital microscope to see these beings on a different scale. The shifting of human-scale vs. forest- and landscape-scale proportions is the crux of my work. The perception can be at the micro or macro level. Compositions of series can be extremely minimal to very ornate.
In 2019, I came to Reading Studio to work and clear my mind, to jog free some creative blocks. As I was driving to Silver Spring, the horizon line became imprinted on me, along with memories of a recent hike in the Catoctin Mountains where I observed trail signs, squares marked on the trees to help the hiker. By the time I arrived at the studio, I had my series idea, and the blocks were gone. The series produced was titled "Trail Signs".
