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The use of discarded wood to construct objects that are symbolic of death create a paradoxical outlook of the cyclical nature of birth/death.

Oracle was created from the same log used on the Dialogue print series. Once again, this comes from ideas of Chinese Zen calligraphy and its precursor, the oracle bones that ancient Chinese shamans would use in their divination practices. There is a lot of writing about the relationship between humans, language and the natural environment that I have come across over the years. There appears to be a direct correlation between the division of the idea of human and nature and the more abstract language has gotten, especially from the oral tradition.

This installation was created as a form of reliquary or shrine for the natural object which was created by the objects own “image”. The arrangement reads both architecturally as well as naturally (i.e. a forest) due to the expressiveness of the print. The log is further incorporated in the installation as a seat for a single viewer to meditate upon the image, the installation environment and even his or herself.

This series of work is based off of Annie Dillard’s essay “Teaching A Stone To Talk”. The stone is a metaphor for nature and the silence that comes from the stone is indicative of the imbalance and lost connection humans have with the natural environment. What once was may never be again.

The prints in the series were made through an ancient Japanese printmaking process of burnishing dry paper onto a wet wood substrate that has a design on it. Charcoal and dry pigments are rubbed onto the wood before applying water and picking up the print.  A stone was used to make the marks in the wood and through collaboration with my hand, I have attempted to restore a dialogue between the various natural materials. These prints are a record of the conversation and become a story of a dialogue within them.

Conversation Wheel (For Conversation With Stones from Tishomingo) is a kinetic sculpture created to force another conversation. The stones rub against the copper in the wheel, creating marks that will be printed as etchings. The combined eight etchings will be combined to create a book that documents the conversation.

This series of prints and subsequent book making comes from ideas of Chinese Zen calligraphy and its precursor, the oracle bones that ancient shamans would use in their divination practices. There is a lot of writing about the relationship between humans, language and the natural environment that I have come across over the years. There appears to be a direct correlation between the division of the idea of human and nature and the more abstract language has gotten, especially from the oral tradition. These prints are an attempt to move back to the immediacy of language, nature and human action. The prints are made primarily of rolling bamboo across a substrate in a ceremonial fashion to gain some information or knowledge of the relationship between humans and nature. Like the oracle bones used, perhaps some sort of dialogue can be taken from the prints.