// Of Berries and Blooms //

Bronze, copper

3 pieces, 5.5’’ by 6.5’’

2016

Our world wanders through each season with grace, changing gently. Though we have dates that mark the beginnings of each, the change in our surroundings is gradual. To me spring blooms in Northwest greens, white petals, and lush rivers picking up where things had ended in trickles. Each year I look forward to the wild berries our forests offer up, the flesh sacrificed to spread each seed. The fruit is not ripe until late spring and into summer, but I delight in recognizing the bright new growth on the evergreen huckleberries and salal. Salmonberry and thimbleberry plants both start from the ground up, coming in as fragile new growths and turning into plants taller than me. These are the leaves that have always told me that spring has arrived. My mother taught me how to make daisy chains as a little girl, since then I have played with different ways of weaving foliage together to create diadems in green. These last few months I have brought these techniques further, into metal, learning and practicing by making three crowns each with a different process. I am using metal to hold onto these leaves, to create crowns that would not wither as we move into summer. These crowns are made of the leaves casted in our bronze pour, of fold formed leaves hammered out of copper, and the electroplating process.

// Shape of Beauty //

Steel, gold Leaf, copper wire

1’ x 1’ 6”

2016

No matter who we are, or what we look like, we have felt the pressure of the beauty industry at some point. The feeling of not being beautiful enough is what this piece frames. I have gold leafed the outside of the steel ribs to represent the layers we place on ourselves, the makeup, the photos, everything we do to broadcast ourselves as better to the world around us. The top is held delicately together with copper knot work, these intricate lives we lead are made up of so many tiny strands that can snap so easily. The inside has been left to rust, this natural wearing of steel is beautiful, but often avoided, covered up by something to preserve the innocence of unweathered metal. The form is based on a 1900s corset made for the working class woman, I have created it in life size.