An exploration of how forests have inspired artists through history to create personal metaphors.

For the 2021 Science Stories Project at The University of Puget Sound I signed on to create an artist book about Sitka willow trees inside the Mt. St. Helens Volcanic Monument. I’d never seen a Sitka willow, but I imagined something from a scene in Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows. I’ve since learned there are 400 varieties of willow tree – with only a small portion of them the fountaining tendril types.

I began this book during a period when I felt very anxious about world events. At the time, I happened to be researching several ancient cosmologies for a different project. I’ve always been fascinated by how the image of the world tree repeats in so many cultures. But my absolute favorite is the Hindu concept of the world elephants that support the earth as they ride through the universe on the back of a giant turtle.

Cupid and Psyche is a large one-of-a-kind piece commissioned for the Just One Look exhibition at the University of Washington, 2016. I used Sarah Ruden’s translation of The Golden Ass by Apuleius (Yale University Press, 2011) as my primary source material for the myth as well as the quotes from Venus on the butterfly wings, which appear in the book.

An exploration of how different architectural styles developed ways to support a roof and compares them with how we view and speak about the homeless.

While the circle and zero share the same shape, they each encompass very different philosophies. Circle or Zero explores these similarities and differences.