Solastalgia

My work explores the empathic connections between humans and the physical landscape and investigates the phenomenon of psychological distress associated withclimate change. I use memories of my itinerant shifts between landscapes to createabstracted ceramic sculptures; for these I reference mountain and glacial forms, anextension of my own experience growing up in Alaska. Ceramics is a medium whichreadily records the hand of the maker while making forms permanent through the firingprocess. I use this aspect of the material to freeze moments in time where the clay splitsand cracks, implying a slow collapse. This reflection of time’s effect on materials elicitscorrelations between the temporality of flesh and ice and stone. Combining materialssuch as lumber, plastic, and polystyrene with the ceramic creates an environment thatreferences the sublime in nature and its corruption due to the waste of industry. Usingthese material contrasts and metaphors, my sculpture work aims to engage viewersemotionally while allowing for a broader discourse regarding the changing climate

All Men Lose Their Way

This book stack has the potential to be expanded into a series illustrating a fictional journey. Utilizing the spines of both non-fiction, reference, and fiction books to construct this narrative would highlight the power of the written form to invoke the journeys of research and the imagination. Bringing these seemingly disparate sections of the library together also showcases the breadth of resources available, consolidating them into an legible narrative. Location These stacks would be situated in common areas around the library. The stacks would be housed in simple wooden boxes to highlight their presence

Semi-Permanent Forms

As a ceramic artist, I am using high fired porcelain forms to create miniature memorials for our ever shrinking polar ice caps. Through the use of public installation, I am seeking to arrange the ceramic forms in ways that potentially confront the viewer in hopes to generate discourse and/or reflection. The use of ceramic materials will help me as an artists gain insight in to the material and push the concept of slipcast porcelain kitsch souvenirs in to different avenues of utilization: as a means of ecological statement rather than soley nostalgia