Messengers and Promises, 2020

Natural dyes (madder root, logwood, pomegranate, osage orange, cochineal, clutch, acacia extract, and iron) on three silk panels, dyed muslin banner with appliqué, glass beads and embroidery, paper cutouts

Window installation for Dirt Palace

“Animals first entered the imagination as messengers and promises.”- John Berger 

Time has proven to be a difficult thing to grasp in quarantine. The only moments it has felt concrete has been in observing the slow cycles of growth and death of plants and insects that I witness on daily hikes through East Rock park here in New Haven. Or on drives looking at roadsides in the height of New England summer at the towering mullein, the paper crepe blossoms of chicory, fanning Queen Anne’s lace and the already seeded dandelions cracking through pebble and gravel and thriving off exhaust. Feeling thrilled by these resilient weeds full of nutrients and medicinal properties, emerging on the fringes of construction sites, despite efforts to eradicate them. Similarly thinking about the beast of burden, like the donkey in Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. Its relationship with humans ranging from being lovingly adorned with flowers at one moment and tail lit aflame at another yet continuing on, only able to convey its anguish in a cry. Researching how butterflies feed off of rotting fish and dung for essential nitrogen and other minerals. Trying to find some solace, or a key in these means of survival, growth and endurance in an ever more toxic environment. Looking to the ass’s bray in its refusal to perform labor as a form of protest.