Viewing art requires your present moment. Daily life makes being mindful difficult, so focusing on details – colors, shapes, familiar text – can short-circuit the brain from unproductive thinking and bring a measure of calm to those who are suffering. I create art to encounter this feeling myself and to share it with the viewer.

From a distance, my monoprint collages can look like quilts or mosaics. Colorful elements are carefully cut and placed into matrices reminiscent of mathematical or scientific principles. When considered up-close, vintage maps, personal cyanotypes and colorful monotypes keep the viewer’s eye moving from element to element. Drawing from travel, topography and plant forms, my monoprint collages evoke feelings of memory, longing and connection.

I have spent the last thirty years living in Bloomington, Indiana. Forest trails are minutes from my house, and wilderness areas are but a short drive away. The land is enveloped by trees, so getting a sense of larger terrain is difficult. Instead, I experience nature on a smaller scale – examining the erosion of stream beds, the patterning on wild hydrangea leaves or the nexus of forest fungi threads.

The use of a structured matrix for my collages is intentional. The different collage elements – maps, free-formed monoprints, silkscreen topo marks or plant cyanotypes – echo each other. Over various scales, the mathematical and scientific patterning repeats and repeats – hinting at an unseen and possibly unknowable organizational structure to all of creation.