Top: Solidarity, commissioned by Wickham Works for the Fuller Moon Arts Festival. "The earth is what we all have in common" (Wendell Barry) and "the land knows you even when you are lost" (Robin Wall Kimmerer). This installation has three parts that harmonize to engage the mind, body, emotions, and spirit to connect in solidarity with others and the earth. First, conveying radical inclusion (all genders, ethnicities, classes, species, and beings), "YOU BELONG" is clearly and assertively sculpted from straw, clay, and sand, elevating mundane natural materials to art. Second, wild-growing plants are labeled with their common names, transforming "weeds" from strange objects to be terminated into familiar, intimate subjects. Third, a sanctuary structure made from locally foraged bamboo and cotton lashing strengthens the spiritual/sacred feeling of the space, with glittering crystals engaging the senses with sound, light, beauty, play, and magic.
Top: You Belong: Created in partnership with Compass Arts Creativity Project, I couldn’t be prouder of my first public sculpture! Meant to convey radical inclusion (“you belong”), be a symbiotic piece with the land (wild-growing plants and native edibles peas and groundnuts provide food and habitat for insects, groundhogs, deer, etc.), and elevate natural building materials (sand, straw, clay, mineral pigments, bricks, chicken wire) to art.
Top: Bird Hof: Made from locally foraged bamboo and biodegradable cotton butcher’s twine. The term hof is Old Norse for “temple”. Placed in a field with mature wild plants, the structure marks the spot as sacred, and makes visible the unseen vital forces shooting up from the ground. Placed on “bare ground,” the structure becomes a manger - and eventual trellis - for growing seedlings as the season progresses. The “hall” is sized for a human to walk through, and birds will benefit as they climb on the structure and eat the insects and plants that are sheltered by it.
Top & at left: The Dominant Feminine (AKA Teeth Fence) is a land / environmental art piece (foraged bamboo, cotton twine, acrylic paint). The environment, the entity we are inside, the enveloper, the jaws, the feminine, is power. A traditionally female art (weaving twine, Japanese lashing, square knots) is weaponized.
Above: Trellis/sculpture based on Sowelu, the Nordic Rune symbol for wholeness, life force, + the sun’s energy. According to Ralph H Blum, Sowelu “embodies the impulse towards self-realization... from the core of your individuality. And yet, what you are striving to become in actuality is what you already are.” It’s also about letting light into denied parts of your life.
Above: Trellis / sculpture, based on the Mannaz Rune for The Self, for red runner beans to climb as high as they can, made from foraged, local, already-fallen bamboo and grapevine. According to Ralph H. Blum, “The starting point is the self. Only clarity, willingness to change, is effective now. A correct relationship to your self is primary, for from it flow all possible right relationships with others and with the Divine.”
Above: Trellis / sculpture based on the Gebo Rune for Partnership, for red noodle beans to climb (and okra, if it feels like it!), made from foraged, local bamboo and grapevine. According to Ralph H. Blum, “True partnership is achieved only by separate and whole beings who retain their separateness even as they unite. The path of partnership can lead you to the realization of a still greater union - union with the Higher Self. The ultimate gift of this Rune is the realization of the Divine in all things.”
Below: Root Down Eat Up is a collaboration between me and my partner, Micah Slavkin; follow @RootDownEatUp on Instagram, to see what’s growing and re-wilding on our tiny rental in NY:
