Materiality is the key to this series of paintings. The images are directed by the materiality of the lands and waters of the Pacific Northwest. I use embodied materiality in these pieces by burying the canvas in the woods, or sinking it in a waterway, for a period of weeks to months before I begin to paint. The canvas is colored, marked, and physically altered by its exposure to different land or water sites for periods ranging from a few weeks to two months. These marks made by a landscape in change direct the creation of images of sea ice, also in crisis, drawn from my years of experience living in the high Arctic.
Before I begin painting, the canvas must be cleaned. Anything living within it — mold or moss — must be killed and removed. Any creatures that have taken up habitation must be removed. The process of neutralizing the canvas takes about a week of immersions in different liquids to clear the organisms from the canvas while preserving the marks and discolorations they’ve made. Some canvases have been altered by creatures. They’ve been nibbled by slugs and clawed by beavers, to name a few animal interactions. Then the canvas also needs to be stabilized and strengthened. The wrinkles and stains and tears created by natural exposure guide the painting’s creation.
These nature-made marks decide the shapes of sea ice and Arctic landmasses, joining the fragile Arctic environment with the increasingly imperiled Northwest. During the ice age, glaciers carved out this region’s geography. My home in Snohomish county stands on a hill of glacial moraine. Reminders of that time are all around us in glacial erratic and hills of moraine. All that is left of that great age are the glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic, and the few surviving glaciers in the Cascades, which are increasingly imperiled. My work is about the earth’s changing climate, not only in the Arctic, but also here. Each piece is made with the guidance of the lush landscape where I now live, giving voice to the Arctic where I have lived, joining these disparate locations into one image, one experience, one Earth.
