She

The inspiration for She came from a poem from the Nag Hammadi Scriptures titled Thunder, Perfect Mind. In my work, I coupled images with stanzas from this poem. The woman and the objects in these images represent the goddess and the sacred feminine reclaiming her place in the world. Through this series, I aim to channel the need to restore the balance between masculine and feminine principles in our society and within ourselves.

This poem along with many other ancient manuscripts was found in a cave in Egypt in 1945 and was probably written around the 1st century. It was only recently made available to the general public.

Unlike the rest of the treatises, Thunder, Perfect Mind is spoken in the voice of a feminine divine power and deals with the endless aspects of the female psyche and the goddess. The author of this poem is unknown but some scholars believe it belonged to an early Gnostic church where gender roles were egalitarian.

Spin Club Tapestry

I grew up in a small farming village in Northern Germany. Long ago, village women met regularly in “Spinneklumps” (Spin Clubs) to spin wool, embroider, and stitch fabrics for their homes. I imagine their conversations as they worked, the beautiful stories that lifted their spirits, as well as the stories of sadness, sorrow and loss. In modern times, village women continued to meet in this tradition, but shared stories over coffee and cake instead of needlework. These close-knit groups of women often stayed together until their death.

In this series, my composite images take the form of tapestries, combining images of embroidered Spin Club fabrics with new and old photographs from the village. I connect the present and the past by re-creating and re-imagining pieces of the embroidery. Spin Club tablecloths, napkins and wall hangings (some dating back to 1799) have been passed down from generation to generation. By following the stitches in these fabrics, I follow a path through the lives of my ancestors – their layout of a perfect pattern and the mistakes they made. Along the way, I add my own mistakes. The fabrics also reveal the passage of time, stained and distorted after sometimes decades of use. The patterns I have stitched myself into the paper are only abstractions of the original Spin Club designs, fragments of memory. After all, memory is fleeting, and changed forever in the act of recollection. Sometimes the stitching is incomplete, creating an invitation for future generations.

Every decision we make is influenced by our history, our environment, and the society we live in. The tapestry of my life belongs to me, but is stitched through with the beauty and heartache of past generations.

Interlude

Growing up on the Minnesota prairie, the spaciousness and drama, emptiness and sometimes desolation of the landscape remains embedded in how I see the world. Finding myself on the East Coast now, the landscape most essential to me, unsurprisingly, is the ocean’s open edge. It is particularly salient to me off-season, when the wide, quiet beaches and dry grasses most closely comment on the world of my childhood; especially, that tenuous, transitional time, the interlude when winter hovers and spring hesitates in the distance.

Screen Houses of Plymouth County

Plymouth, Massachusetts is celebrated as the site of the Pilgrims Landing in 1620 along with its Cape Cod Bay coastline and protected harbor that attracted these first settlers to the this location.

When flying over the Plymouth area in the fall, one can’t miss the mosaic landscape below dominated by large patches of magenta. These are the cranberry bogs of southeastern Massachusetts. The cranberry – the indigenous plant that has thrived in this landscape since before the Pilgrims arrived – dominates the low lying terrain of peat and sand bogs surrounded and protected by pitch pine and scrub oak uplands.

Often hidden from view along the byways of the cranberry bogs, I discovered several unique barns. I learned these were over 100 year old  “screen houses” whose purpose was to sort the berries before the advent of today’s automated harvesting. The dominate feature in the various structures was a bank of windows designed so that each sorter had maximum light available for the task.

Some of the screen houses that survive today have found other purposes, and some have been neglected or vandalized. These  photographs document these unique structures in their surrounding bogs and uplands before they totally fade from the landscape. Inspired by an 1880’s painting “The Cranberry Harvest” by Eastman Johnson, these photographs capture the spirit of the era in which the screen houses were used for their original purpose of sorting the berries of the annual harvest.

Early Light

I save things “just in case”, and so began this project with a collection of scraps of paper and early morning light. Landscape photographers chase the light outside; I chased the light that came into my house through widows and doorways. During this project, I became a student of light, shadows and time.

I had to work quickly to catch the light. I cut, folded, and curled pieces of black and white paper and placed them in the light to see what shapes and patterns would emerge. I was surprised that the shadows made with black and white paper changed so much on different backgrounds. I experimented to see how many different shadows I could make with one piece of paper.

As the light came into my house, I moved as it moved until I ran into walls and ran out of light. I realized that while I was chasing the light, I was also chasing time.

Industrial Grace

In this series of images I explore the form and details of machines that were built during the Industrial Revolution and are on display at the Charles River Museum of Innovation in Waltham and at the Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill.

I was initially drawn to these machines because of their historical significance but as I spent quiet afternoons studying them I came to appreciate their dignified beauty. Beneath the rust and oil these cold utilitarian machines have color and grace.

Puerta Vallarta Colors

For years I’ve had a love affair with Mexico. The vernacular architecture, the food, and the music might be enough – but I think it’s the welcoming nature and quiet optimism of the Mexican culture – that calls me back. I see this culture reflected in the colors chosen to embellish the simplest of elements – the buildings, at eye level.

Puerta Vallarta Colors was shot over three days in this once sleepy fishing port, that is becoming a busy tourist destination. But the old stone, stucco, and cement surfaces remain, often adorned with aged hardware and utilities – and they are constantly refreshed with new paint in a celebratory palette. To me, these colors communicate the spirit of the Mexican culture.

Resilience

The Scranton Lace Company was established in 1890 and was the largest producer of Nottingham lace in the United States from 1916 to 2002. The factory is a sprawling complex of buildings. Even the remnants are notable today. Over time weathering has stripped away the surfaces, highlighting strengths, exposing weaknesses, and creating texture. My interest goes beyond the aged colors and patterns. I’m interested in the stories implicit in the remnants of the buildings. How did the company fit into the community? What is left behind to remind us of those who worked there?

Invented Inventory

I have photographed my children for years, fascinated by their growth and our evolution as a family. Last fall my youngest left for college. My newly emptied nest was both a gift and a challenge. Suddenly I had more time to devote to my own pursuits, but the silence and solitude made it harder to ignore the chatter that populates my head.  While some of the voices were encouraging, the loudest ones were not. I found myself wondering how my children had grown up while I still had so much to figure out about myself.

Invented Inventory is a series of self-portraits cataloguing the thoughts, feelings, and attributes I’ve uncovered at this crossroads. Each image is a physical manifestation of some facet of my exploration. By painting, sewing, collecting and constructing all of the elements of the final image, I create a work that is uniquely mine and mine to determine. This control stands in contrast to the vulnerability I feel standing in front of the camera. Ultimately, it’s the balance between the two that interests me most.

Siren Song

“Siren Song” centres on the desert landscape of California’s Salton Sea – a place where life barely whispers. In this work, I focus on the materiality of the landscape and the vestiges of its inhabitants – remains that give a sense of the past. In many ways, Siren Song is more about the people – and their absence – than about the land.

Almost frozen in time, the Salton Sea feels silent and empty. Sparseness, open terrain, the desert’s horizon, and the distant mountains define this world and pull me in. The artifacts of everyday life, embedded in the desolate aesthetics of the landscape, compel me and help draw a connection to the history of this arid environment.

Rather than tell a linear story Siren Song is a reflection of my emotional connection to and understanding of the Salton Sea.