Ongoing Projects
Indigo / botanical dyes
I’ve been cooking up indigo since 1990, when I restored Navajo blankets and rugs.
In 2011 I learned that indigo grew in New Mexico. Since then I’ve included percecaria tinctoria (Japanese Indigo) in my garden and celebrated the good years (rain!) with a communal dye bath. Many different materials are placed in the bath - paper is one of my favorites.
My experience in working closely with indigo has been transformative. As a material and color, it has guided me. It takes the lead and humbles me. While it does not show up directly in all of my art work, it is quietly working its magic, clearing the way for the new to come through in whatever it is that I am making.
As a result of indigo, I’m experimenting with other botanical colors that the high desert yields. Chamisa and Maximilian sunflowers are abundant out my door, consume little water and make a lovely gold/yellow/ ochre/grey green. In August 2023 I had show at GFContemporary in Santa Fe titled ‘Song of Gloria Mundi’, comprised of work made with the dyed fabrics and paper, the plant palette informing the body of work.
Trees/River/Pond
In September 2016 I began a three-month residency with the Santa Fe Art Institute. The project focused on the riparian restoration that had taken place along the Santa Fe River in La Cieneguilla, the effluent treated water that flows west to Cochiti Pueblo where it joins the Rio Grande. In November, I presented my immersion into this complex stretch of river and the beaver ponds that altered the land and soundscape of the place I’ve called home for 30+ years. The photo collages of the river and beaver ponds were a result of this residency.
I continue to photograph and investigate the river, and I’m happy to report the beavers have returned. I’ve expanded to photographing the cottonwoods in the area and wherever I see a lone cottonwood in the high desert. Every cottonwood I meet is an oasis. Hearing the leaves quake, I am on a dry beach, listening to waves. I regard the tree photo collages as iconic portraits, placeholders for the sea that is now desert and the rapidly accelerating change in the climate and its catastrophic effects as experienced in my lifetime.
We the People
This is how I reply to events taking place. While most of my art work veils the present in story- mythic- timelessness, this is about now. My open letters to the world
Recent work includes looking at my own colonial and immigrant past, inviting my ancestors into the conversation.