More bats

Working on some ideas for new pieces:

Yep, I'm still into the bat thing. It's hard to forget about - in Pennsylvania (the state in which I currently live), the Game Commission has failed to take steps to declare that bats are becoming endangered, therefore deciding not to move forward with protection and treatment, despite the fact that 98% of some of the state's bat populations have already died from White Nose. In keeping with our state's history of prioritizing mineral profits over public health and the environment, there were a lot of people who felt that helping the bats make a comeback - by doing things like limiting the hours windmills run and cutting back on logging and mining to stop the spread of the fungus - were too much of an economic sacrifice, and forced the Commission into backing down from their initial stance of considering bats endangered. Not good.

Bag It: The Movie next Thursday

As part of the outreach for A Matter of Convenience, Rose and I are screening the film Bag It: Is Your Life Too Plastic? at the Mattress Factory next Thursday. Here are all the details:

When: Thursday, November 15th, 6pm
Where: Mattress Factory Museum, 505 Jacksonia Street, 15212
What else: we will have snacks and giveaways, and are also requesting that people bring their phone books in (with plastic wrapping, if you still have it!) for recycling.

This event, like all the outreach we have planned for AMoC, is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

A Matter of Convenience opening reception

A Matter of Convenience opened on September 16th to a wonderful reception - almost 200 people were in attendance! You can see a set of photos from the opening here.

food web

Cutting out lots of itty bitty tiny animals from scrap paper. Show opens in 6 days.

A Matter of Convenience website

The website for my upcoming show is up and ready for browsing - find it here. Check it out to see artist bios and photos of work in progress.

You can also find the facebook page for AMoC here. We'll be publishing updates, events, and news about topics relevant to the show.

The opening's only 10 days away . . . hope to see you there!

hot off the press

I printed the Carolina Wren linocut this weekend. I used a combination of Graphic Chemical Bismarck Brown and Speedball brown, both oil-based, on Japanese-style kitakata paper.

a matter of convenience

I've been hinting for a few posts now at a new show in September, co-curated with Rose Clancy and showing at Future Tenant downtown. It's called A Matter of Convenience, and it focuses specifically on notions of convenience, ease, and the cost of decisions we make about how and where we get our food. Rose Clancy, myself, artist Anna Mikolay, and Landscape Architect and soil expert Suzy Meyer will all be exhibiting work.

Here's a summary of what I've been doing:

beneficial birds linocuts

These linocuts represent backyard birds that have a beneficial role in the garden through natural pest control, which directly relates to Rose's themes of sustainable gardening that she'll be working with. They will be printed on nice paper, like one would for an edition, but I'll also be translating them into silkscreen prints. Those will be printed onto handmade paper that's been impregnated with wildflower seeds. People will be able to buy the prints for a very affordable cost, hang onto them for the winter, and then plant the paper in the spring.

csa documentation

One of the ways we're looking at the idea of convenience is by exploring local sources of produce, such as farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture (aka farmshares). I'm documenting my farmshare pickup each week on flickr - you can see the rest of the photos here - to give people an idea of what that crate actually looks like each week.

the cookbook

I'm also writing a cookbook, titled A Time to Eat: a solution to the overabundance of seasonal produce. It has recipes that I've invented myself, as well as some passed down through my family and from my friends' families. Now that I have all those veggies, I want to show people what people actually cook with all that green stuff. Long story short, you do have to make a commitment to cooking often, and you have to like vegetables! But I think spending a little time and practice on it is easier than people think - like that phrase people use, cook smarter, not harder. This cookbook is designed to help people do that through simple, delicious recipes.

I'm also working on an installation of paper birds and animals about food webs - yes, the diagram you probably saw in your elementary school science textbook. Mine will be cool, I promise. Stay tuned for more updates to our show.

American Robin

Newest bird linocut of the American Robin, a.k.a. Turdus migratorius, a.k.a. voted Most Likely to Have a Hilarious Scientific Name.

Night shots of Future Tenant installation

A few night shots:

new photos of older work

I'm putting together a portfolio this week, so I took the opportunity to shoot better pictures of some older work.

A detail of a watercolor from 2010:

Old etchings turned into stuffed birds:

A mini-shrine created as part of the gallery documentation for my kapliczek installation:

hibernaculum statement

I wrote a statement for my hibernaculum installation. I don't typically write statements for individual pieces, but as this one is installed in a public location without a gallery attendant or anyone to pass on my contact information, I still wanted to be able to communicate to people viewing the piece. I've pasted it below for the benefit of those not able to see the installation in person.



hibernaculum is an installation responding to the epidemic of White Nose Syndrome, an invasive disease with a 90% mortality rate that has been spreading through bat colonies in North America since 2008. The thousands of paper bat silhouettes that comprise this work are cut from old and discarded scientific texts. As I follow the slow pace of research of White Nose, I am reminded that intense study and voluminous data do not always fully illuminate a dynamic and complex universe. The materials and methods used in this work are a meditation on the (f)utility of scientific information and our attempts to understand a world that is changing faster than we can identify causes, effects, or solutions.

install day 2

Put the finishing touches on the installation last night, including adding a little cluster of bats right up to the window. Night shots of the finished work to follow.

Hibernaculum install at Future Tenant

I'm in the process of installing hibernaculum, my piece comprised of many many little paper bats, at Future Tenant in downtown Pittsburgh.

 A picture of the individual disassembled "tiles" of bats:

Install help from the ever-handy Dave:

Getting tiles up on the wall. We built a plywood wall in the bay window to make a space large enough for one or two people to walk into and view the installation:

And a shot from the street:

I've got a bit more filling in and edge cleaning-up to do before I'm finished, but if you're downtown you can already check it out! The installation will be up for the whole month of May at Future Tenant, located at 819 Penn Avenue. Check their website for events - and note that because there are no exhibitions in May, the gallery will probably not be holding normal hours. But I may be there for a few afternoons, so I'll post dates and times here.

Siala sialis

Another linocut finished.

beneficial birds

New linocuts I'm working on for a show with Rose Clancy this fall.

The Biodiversity Project

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore is working on a new project showcasing endangered animals from the world's zoos and wildlife refuges. Stunning and portentous photos.

The Biodiversity Project