Site Specific Installation

Plume Boom

3' x 2.5' x 5.5'

Mixed media (feathers, paper clay, paper, fabric, acrylic paint, foam board, wood)

My historically inspired site-specific piece is about plume hunting, Audubon, and curios cabinets. It was displayed in front of the Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, FL, which is essentially one big cabinet of curiosities containing artifacts from the collections of the affluent. The plume boom, a huge rise in demand for feathers to be put on hats and other accessories similar to items on display in the Lightner, brought conservationists (And J. J. Audubon) to St. Augustine.

My piece's intent is to put illustrations like Audubon's alongside tiny plume hats; A subtle poke at the fact that Audubon was studying and illustrating these birds at a time when the only way to observe them for long periods of time was to kill them (He was even criticized for this by other concervationists).

The types of birds referenced in both the hats and drawings are snowy egrets and roseate spoonbills, which were explicitly studied and referenced by Audubon. Also included are terns and a pileated woodpecker.

Sources obtained from the St. Augustine Historical Library include excerpts from:

Audubon in Florida by Kathryn Hall Proby

Killing Mr. Watson by Peter Matthiessen

Audubon by John Chancellor

Long Term Installation

Cyclical Rot

Space appx. 4' x 3.5' x 10'

Flowers, sewing thread, hot glue

For my long term installation, I wanted to incorporate something that would change throughout the week that it was up. The higher up flowers were fresh and gathered just before installing, and as they get closer to the floor, there is a steady gradation to dryer, deader flowers. This represents a sort of  time line of decay, originating from the ceiling and seeping onto the floor. There were also many bits protruding from the walls, and they gradually wilted downward and fell off.

30 Minute Outdoor Installation

Grass Glass

Glass panes on grass

Appx. 3' x 11" Next to San Sebastion River, St. Augustine, FL

For this piece, I was interested in the industrial framing, flattening or displaying of nature, and the reflections from the glass. I enjoy the one where you can see the building in the glass, as it juxtaposes the natural with the unnatural.

30 Minute Indoor Installation

NO ENTRY

Space appx. 5' x 3' x 10'

Floral bedsheets, masking tape, sharpie

For this piece, I wanted to create an intimate, secretive space. I used floral sheets to make a small "room," on the outside of which were labels and words politely asking the viewer not to look inside, and to remain outside. On the inside, as you go in, the text gets progressively less friendly, and if you fully enter the space and turn around you'll be greeted with profane and aggressive language.

I think this speaks about invasions of privacy, and how people will either obey (literal or figurative) signs or purposefully disobey them.

Spell of the Sensuous Response 2

Thrush

7" x 10"

Acrylic paint on cardboard

"It is by a complementary shift of attention that one may suddenly come to hear the familiar song of a blackbird or a thrush in a surprisingly new manner- not just as a pleasant melody repeated mechanically, as on a tape player in the background, but as active, meaningful speech."

I utilized the manner in which the author said that language can stem from simple instinctual gestures and primal urges and responses. Therefore, I used the age old method of finger painting to create this image of a sing thrush, because that speaks of the beginnings of learning a process such as painting in childhood, or just the raw primitive feeling of using your hands to create symbols.

Spell of the Sensuous Response 1

Self Perspective

4" x 7"

Graphite and ink on paper

"The breathing, sensing body draws its sustenance and its very substance from the soils, plants, and the elements that surround it; it continually contributes itself, in turn, to the air, to the composting earth, to the nourishment of insects and oak trees and squirrels, ceaselessly spreading out of itself as well as breathing the world into itself, so that it is very difficult to discern, at any moment, precisely where this living body begins and where it ends. Considering phenomenologically- that is, as we actually experience and live it- the body is a creative, shapeshifting entity."

I responded to this quote with an illustration of a faceless person, commenting on the way we see ourselves. We never truly see our own faces aside from our nose in our peripherals, only our bodies from an unflattering angle; What we see in a mirror is a backwards image and what we see in photos is distorted and flattened. We will never accurately know what we look like.