Cell Phone Hill, 2025. Soft and hard ground etching with soil-based ink.
Welcome to my new experiment in communications–a monthly newsletter. As I step away from social media platforms that are increasingly becoming spaces for rampant disinformation, I’m trying this form. Each newsletter will have three sections: Reflections, where I situate my practice within a larger social/cultural/daily life context; In the Studio, where I share what I’m currently working on; and Updates, where I share opportunities to see my work.
If you would prefer not to receive my emails on a monthly basis, I get it! I’m constantly working to stem the tide of e-communications. Please let me know; I can put you on a list to receive fewer emails.
Reflections
We are in week three of a presidential administration that is waging an all-out assault on our democratic institutions and targeting the most marginalized people in our communities. It is disorienting and overwhelming by design. I believe that imagination–creating the world we want, and using art as a tool of resistance–is essential right now. I am reflecting on my response to this current moment: should I keep calling my elected officials and go to protests? Should I double down on meaningful engagement with my immediate community? This blog post by Daniel Hunter is helping with that process. I don’t have any answers yet, but am paying attention to information sources I trust (some recommendations: Letters from an American, The Ink, The Contrarian, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, and Indivisible) to see what will be needed. These are truly uncertain times.
In the Studio
I am currently working on two projects. First, a commissioned painting based on the geology at Waggoner’s Gap, a section of the Kittatinny Ridge in south-central Pennsylvania (detail of the work in progress, above). This painting is for a couple who live in the region and appreciate its natural beauty.
Second, I’m creating a series of works based on my residency at the Sawtooth National Recreation Area last October, which I will exhibit at the NRA’s Visitors Center this summer. I see these pieces as maps of my experience there, a record of my relationship-building with a new landscape. The etching at the top of this email documents my daily walks up the hill next to the U.S. Forest Service housing I was staying in, the only place where I could get cell phone reception. I forged many paths through the fields of sagebrush, trying to find a signal. The hill also offered a panoramic view of of the Sawtooth Mountains–I took photos of the sunrise and sunset every day, and no two were the same. Read my blog post about my time in Idaho here.
Below is a watercolor painting using handmade soil, rock and lake pigments from the Sawtooths.
Updates
In the next two months, I will be creating two outdoor works. One is a wall painting at the Big Ramp Gallery, a new collective artspace in Philadelphia, for a show opening March 15th. This painting will be made with pigments sourced from the Kensington and Port Richmond neighborhoods. I will also be creating a site-specific installation at Wildwood Park in Harrisburg as part of their annual Art in the Wild exhibition. I’ll have more details on both projects in next month’s newsletter.