Heartwood

In this series I have been strongly drawn to the natural qualities in found wood: every irregular and dynamically formed piece stumbled upon during the habitual rhythm of my daily routine. Unique and individual, they are records of growth and experience. They are totems and storytellers of what caused the grain to flex and bend into a specific patterned fingerprint. When the tough outer layer of bark is pulled away, the formerly elastic and muscle-like pathways of the rings appear. They ripple and cross weaving together an intricate structure necessary for survival. Laid bare, the heartwood shows where the tree has bowed to the wind, been singed by a strike of lighting, or grown in burls around a hard spot within itself. Trees are adaptive and strong. Flexible and immortal, they pass on to their children all of the good and strong things they have learned: the knowledge of things overcome.

As a response I pair altered materials with natural objects to symbolize the opposing forces of softness and strength inherent in feminine nature. This tension is personified through the combination of woven chains of copper, an ever-changing and responsive metal, and the “nesty”, gentle, look of needle felted wool whose formation requires multiple and violent acts of stabbing or puncturing. I think of material metaphor as a way to reckon with my own oscillation between who I find myself to be and who others require me to be through pervading cultural designations. Allowing my experiences to create a patina on the surface of my being forms an adaptive armor that guards against the “outsidness” and “otherness” of the Stranger. And though I feel a compulsion to block up and close the holes within myself, these repetitive acts of honoring nature, making safe spaces, and filling holes have become a search for healing through acknowledging and embracing paradox.