ARTIST STATEMENT
I am an interdisciplinary visual artist, engaged in experimental processes exploring personal histories and the tension of paradox to create narratives expressed as photographs, sculptural objects, and bound works.
Convergence, 2022
There is a mystery to our climate—visible yet elusive, immense yet intimate. To elevate awareness of its shifting nature and its impact on our lives, I create visual "charts" using photographs I made of the ocean and sky while at sea in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The ITCZ is a narrow band near the equator where the trade winds of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres collide. This atmospheric collision zone drives global weather circulation and is the birthplace of all hurricanes.
During a 27-day crossing of the Pacific Ocean, the weather dictated my life minute by minute. I recorded the surface of the ocean and the strength of the wind hour by hour. In that remote, ever-changing environment, I became attuned to subtle shifts—wispy cirrus clouds giving way to towering cumulonimbus, the ocean's surface rising and falling with no discernible rhythm, the threat of darkness always looming. These observations, once part of my physical navigation at sea, have become a metaphorical compass for navigating the uncertainties of life in a climate-altered world.
The ocean is not just weathered surface but engine and archive—its deep currents acting as conveyor belts that transfer heat across the globe, regulating temperature and weather patterns far beyond the horizon. When these systems shift, so too does the climate, affecting ecosystems, coastlines, and communities around the world. My work is an attempt to trace these movements, to sense what is usually sensed only by instruments or satellites, and to give form to their quiet but powerful influence.
Each layered archival pigment print is hand-marked to suggest shifting hurricane tracks and navigation plot lines—fragments of both human and planetary movement. The prints are then soaked in seawater collected from the ITCZ twenty years ago, allowing the salt to crystallize in direct sunlight. As it reacts with the carbon-based inks, a form of acidification occurs—mirroring the very process transforming our oceans today.
In this work, I map a dialogue between memory, observation, and planetary change. The ocean and its currents are both subject and collaborator, revealing what science quantifies and what the body intuits: that the climate is in motion, and we are adrift within it.
The Tension of Flow, 2021
The Tension of Flow holds a place where both discord and grace coexist. After many years of confusion and turmoil, I felt compelled to resolve disenchantment around marriage, motherhood, and career. While trying to settle into the opposing paths as a moored mother and wife, my lifelong dreams of living untethered adventures of peril and enterprise began to drift away.
In the pursuit of bringing disparate parts of myself together and honoring the tension of my dilemma, I began to spend my time folding, crumpling, tearing, sewing, and forming photographic prints of the ocean crashing on a rocky shore.
I use lashing, hitching, and mending techniques from my sailing and mountaineering background to fashion the photographs, thread, and rope into symbolic forms and vessels.
The hands-on process allows me to express a new language without the constraints of precept. The finished pieces honor the tension of opposites that I have learned to reconcile during this tumultuous chapter of my life.
Onboard, 2015
A boat is a symbol of togetherness. Sharing the same vessel means sharing the same fate. Just weeks after our children were born, my husband and I began bringing them aboard our sailboat—inviting them into a life shaped by wind, tide, and intimacy. At sea, away from the distractions of a fast-paced society, we slow down, live simply, grow closer to nature, and spend uninterrupted time as a family. It’s a lifestyle shaped by intention, where every decision matters—and everything is shared.
Our hope was to get our children not only physically aboard, but mentally and spiritually on board with this way of life: to live close together in a small space, to feel at home on the open ocean. Yet as we’ve navigated both literal and emotional waters, we’ve come to realize that—for now—they are mostly along for the ride.
This work reflects the contrast between our romantic vision of sailing and our children’s perspective of simply being there. The images are presented as a series of 5x7” postcards tucked inside a hollowed-out copy of Dove, the novel that first inspired my dream to meet a fellow sailor, build a family, and sail the world together.
The repurposed book and handmade postcards evoke the wabi-sabi philosophy we embrace at sea—one that honors simplicity, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the integrity of natural materials and rhythms. These humble objects tell a story of dreams, reality, and what it means to truly share space, direction, and time.
At the Edge, 2014
Keen on sailing lore and legends, I read "the romantics believed seafaring gave you a sense of nearing the eternal; it was the closest to the sublime you could experience." [Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)].
I personally experienced this while spending time at sea mostly alone for 27 days in a small sailboat and longed to recapture that unique and feeling.
Bound to land life, I chose to make this series along the coast of the vast Pacific Ocean, creating images yards from shore while my young children swam at arm's length just out of frame.
Age of Reason, 2013
As my son reached the end of his seventh year I became more attentive to his changing awareness of the world beyond himself. According to Canon Law, this is the age at which children attain the ability to reason and have moral responsibility. By his eighth year he began to navigate the world in his own way and started to examine the concepts of death, betrayal, and the complexity of being human.
I noticed a loss of innocence during this ‘Age of Reason.’ When I talked to other parents of children around the same age, I began to realize how critical a turning point this is not only for the child but for the parents too.
I explore this familial transformation utilizing inspiration from The Braque Family Triptych, a religious altarpiece, to look at the shift in domestic connections. I create portraits using contemporary families with a child who is coming of age.
The children wear a red piece of clothing as a metaphor for their familial relationship. Each child holds their favorite toy from childhood, some more closely than others, representing their readiness or hesitancy to accept their entry into the next phase of life.
The parents express their own desire to hold on, let go, or assist their child with tools they think they will need as they mature into adulthood. These are symbolized by objects such as a book for knowledge, a dog for loyalty, and a pair of owls for wisdom.
Rite of Water, 2010-2012
My children have known the mystique and danger of the ocean their entire lives. I witnessed them learning to trust their power and be at peace with their vulnerability as they went through a unique rite of passage when they were just 2 and 5 years old.
Each color panel represents the early phase or 'the cutting away' in a rite of passage. This is where they leave what is familiar and comfortable yet they appear courageous and capable.
The black and white images represent the phase where uncertainty occurs. Their perception is unclear. They are 'liminal people' in this phase which is at the margin and most often where revelation occurs.