“Animate Earth” is a joint Art Show in Collaboration with artist Emily Johnston, March-June 2024
“ANIMATE EARTH”
This body of work draws on conversations and walks I had with Emily Johnson. In my studio I started to explore a few different concepts based on the boulders, mountain vistas and waterfall basins that we visited last year. About a couple of weeks into this exploration I recalled a small meadow we passed by on the way down to the Kaaterskill falls filled with dried grasses and wildflowers. The grasses had dropped some of their seeds and looking more closely, examining them in my hands I noticed some were split open creating flattened surfaces. Somehow the mystery of these dried seed hulls started to nudge me while I was working through some of the other sketches. Maybe it’s the mystery of the cyclical nature of these small but powerful life force s containing seed pods that got me thinking about how they are carried distances by the rain and wind . Replant ing themselves in different areas the seeds then enter a winter rest period before starting the cycle all over again. I am interested in the way that objects or sculptures communicate with people. Conveying a message, a story and for me it’s also very much about the journey of how the shapes came to be. I’m curious about the process, following the sometimes subtle insights. I also see this work as open ended, one step leading to the next. An elastic idea or thread.
Some of the pigments used in the paintings and ceramic glazes came from local shale rock gathered and milled by http://emily-johnston.com/
Animate Earth Show on view at https://www.weirdspecialty.com/gallery in Tivoli, NY March 23-June 15, 2024
