New work: "Rare & Exquisite"
I'm not usually a huge fan of butterflies; maybe I've seen too many of them printed in pink and slapped on products for girls. Also, they're flying bugs. But I am fascinated by some of the associations and cultural baggage they carry.
Some time ago, I heard a local radio story about how a military base also provides a refuge for endangered animals, including butterflies.
Credit: Sentinel Landscape program (USDA, Dept. of Defense, Dept. of Interior)
Environmental protection -- yay! -- but the irony of the program was even better. I was intrigued by the idea that a native species was safer among soldiers and artillery.
Soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (photo credit: US Dept. of Defense)
Native, local and vulnerable... hmm. As an artist, I explored the vulnerability of black bodies in my recent solo museum exhibit. And I've heard so many conversations calling black people 'an endangered species' since the 1980s. So I fused the two ideas in these collages.
I combined images from my family photo archive with photos of endangered butterflies from four regions of the United States.
As a kid, I remembered being mildly curious about the Victorian hobby of "collecting" butterflies. Then I learned the brutal reality. So as I sketched out my collage idea, I drew on that violent history.
The result is four large, dimensional collages I've titled "Rare & Exquisite." When you see them hung in a grid, they'll measure roughly six feet high by eight feet wide at the "Locally Sourced" exhibit. Want to hear more? Please join us at the reception on May 19th, at the Columbia City Gallery.
Work-in-progress: engaging your ghosts
These little people don't exist anymore. Neither does the landscape where they sit.
They're not dead, of course: that's me and my brother as preschoolers. But Halloween reminds me of my fascination with stories and lives that might have been.
The little girl in these family photos was scared of almost everything: monsters, getting lost, upsetting someone or not being liked... the list was endless. Right now, I'm living through the scariest presidential election season I've ever experienced. But I've also lived long enough to know the outcome will not signal the end of the world. (Probably. I could be wrong this time.)
Halloween is supposed to be the time of year when 'the veil between worlds is at its thinnest.' I've always loved the idea of reaching other worlds, real or fictional, and I realize there may be some horrors when we get there. But I suppose I can stand some of the horrors, as long as I get the magic too.
Collage in progress: the little prince
You know about The Little Prince, right? (Not that one. This one.)
Credit: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (U.S. public domain, copyrighted in France until 2045)
I'm working on a collage homage to the little prince, so to speak. This summer, I noticed NASA celebrated the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing by uploading photos from all the missions to Flickr. I'm now remixing a few of those images with my family photos, on watercolor paper.
The book's watercolor illustrations pulled me into that other universe so long ago I don't even remember the first time I saw them. But even as a kid, I understood the themes of alienation and connection perfectly. Not that I could have told you this back then, but I knew alienation isn't just loneliness, or even being alone by choice.
Museum of the Little Prince, Hakone, Japan. Credit: arieM1FLERéunion/ Wikimedia Commons
It's also about the parallel experience of not quite living in the same reality as the person next to you. Even when the other person is your friend, that connection is always tenuous and changing. You might remember I also explored those ideas in my most recently completed piece. So as I continue to work on the Great Mystery Project, I find that head space melancholy but also full of potential and anticipation. More to come.
(And if you haven't read The Little Prince, what are you waiting for? It's less than 100 pages. I know -- I've read it in both French and English.)