Space to embed myself into minds and curiosity. I found myself at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, where I engaged with plenty of brilliant minds from Americorps and faculty from Iowa State and the University of Iowa. I also had great conversations with Zach Poff, the current artist in residence. A big shout out to Brent Mortensen and …
I love experiments and surprises and thrive on these in my artistic practice. I use unframed raw canvas, taffeta, and satin to create large mixed media landscapes. I layer highly-pigmented color “soups” on the fabric and trace cast shadows from my immediate natural and built environment. Back in the studio, I dress these figures in …
As a true Gemini, I’ve had quite a few occupations. I’ve been an ice cream store clerk, business operations manager, entrepreneur, HR specialist, advertising guru, administrative assistant, housekeeper, social worker, post-secondary student, instructor, professor, mother, and life partner. And yes, I’ve been an artist. Being an artist and creator has been my one constant …
This week I did more plankton trails with my home-brewed software. It can be tricky to record the right video, as the bigger zooplankton like to swim into the frame and obliterate all the detail. But I got a few good ones. A small cladoceran generating a large current: Also saw a few things I’ve …
6/10 I began my drive to Iowa from Kalamazoo, Michigan on June 10th. It was my first trip into the state, and I really had no ideas of what Iowa or its landscape would be like. I was not altogether surprised that it was flat, but had not considered the vastness of the landscape before …
Read more “Mucky Areas, Animal Behavior, and the Value of Observation”
Week 2 – No comfort in a growth zone, no growth in a comfort zone The good news — no poison ivy yet! Sunday There was a lovely parents brunch today. Lisa Roti did a beautiful job decorating the room and Erika created a buffet that was really lovely. I’d like to add that the …
Read more “No comfort in a growth zone, no growth in a comfort zone”
For more than 5,000 years, tallgrass prairies occupied 240 million acres of North America’s landscape, about 85% of the Midwest. All of this changed in the 1800s with European settlement. Settlers arrived with the goal of “breaking the land,” to replace the rolling prairies with productive farmland. They succeeded, and today, from region to region, …
Week 1 – Becoming Intimate With fear Face toward your fear, leap into your fear, and . . . smile at fear. But the main teaching is that you actually can stay with it, you actually can turn towards it, you actually can leap into it rather than having it set off this chain reaction. …
What a mess and a blessing, to be back on the lake, expected to present a studio full of made objects for the benefit of expanding the students’ horizons. I am examining my anxiety levels with interest and frantically pasting tissue paper to sticks. I’ve become known for being a person who carries sticks around …
Read more “A Mess, a Blessing, a Giant Screen, and a lot of Sticks”
During my second week at Lakeside, I spent a lot of time exploring specimen collections here and made some drawings based on my findings. In King Lab I found drawers of taxidermy birds, a cabinet housing an entomology collection, and a variety of plant specimens dried and labeled in clear boxes. I’m curious about collection …
As an artist whose work is primarily inspired by the natural world, but whose understanding of ecology is more experiential than academic or scientific, the opportunity to sit in on classes at Lakeside Laboratory has been an invaluable experience. I’ve lived in the Midwest for less than a year, so I came into this residency …
Read more “At Lakeside, everyday conversations are peppered with impromptu lessons”
I got to spend this week tagging along with the various classes around campus and learning about the geography and ecosystems around Okoboji. I’m finishing this week full of inspiration and a thirst to learn more from all the great professors on campus. On my mind: diatoms, maps, and genetic algorithms.