Inspired by topography and biology, these works contemplate the relationship between people and the natural environment.

 

Sometimes I feel so detached, like, when was the last time I touched grass? Am I even part of this whole thing? It’s easy to feel like an onlooker who sees the environment as a dwindling resource and nature as a weekend destination. It’s easy to feel totally alienated from the natural world. It’s also easy to feel alienated from the human body, frustrated by the disconnect between inside and out. To wonder, is this body really me? Why is it so out of my control? If it’s me, why does it so often feel like I’m fighting against it?

 

I’ve always hated thinking about the physicality of bodies. Veins, blood, skin, wounds. The way our bodies change and morph over time, it can be really frightening to confront. Through these pieces I change that perspective and attempt to resituate my whole self in the natural world. As part of the process, I draw on visual connections between the body and the environment. Every new visual connection I discover causes me to reexamine that disgusted and disconnected feeling. I see a purple bruise turning yellow and green on my thigh and it reminds me of Wyoming, the colors of the great sagebrush sea, the background of my own life as I fell in love with my partner. I glimpse an older woman’s leg wrapped with bulging varicose veins; I think of viewing winding rivers from above, I wonder where she’s been and where she’s headed. I see a gouge in a tree, caked in bubbly dried sap. It reminds me of the nasty cold sores I always get, and I feel a little more connected to it. I never used to really look that hard at trees.

 

We can find beauty in the reality of our environment and ourselves, and we can find beauty in the way they both change. Regardless of our felt relationship to the natural world, we really are part of it. We really are the same.