Constructions
Constructions combine material and site research, resulting in a binding of papers made from collected seaweed, plants, and river muds to form sculptures and installations.
Each piece is a study of materials found in landscapes impacted by pollution and ecological distress. Sites have agricultural waste, troublesome seaweed and plant species, and polluted river mud, materials that are processed into paper pulp. The wet, artist-made sheets are dried and formed to allow the material characteristics to speak. Peering through the side of the reams, one can see the crevices and caves formed by the cockled paper. Shapes echo book pages and industrial works such as levee slopes and nuclear cooling towers, and present layers of the material.
Rome Point Seaweed Constructions
Rome Point Seaweed Constructions is a series of wall sculptures made from seaweed paper, that tells a story of industry interwoven with a species from afar, and how humans shape the waters more than we know.
Rome Point is located in Rhode Island, USA. It was a summer fishing place for thousands of years for the Narragansett tribe. In the 1970s, the site was considered for a UNC nuclear energy plant, with cooling towers that would circulate hot water into the cold ocean waters, raising the temperature of the Bay. Through community advocacy, this did not happen.
The artist made the paper from Rome Point’s Codium fragile seaweed, which arrived to coastal North America in the 1950s, in ship ballast water from Japan. It outcompetes eel grass needed for shellfish, and is called an ‘invasive’ species by scientists. The form is influenced by nuclear cooling towers and the act binding together book pages. Rome Point Seaweed Constructions are inspired by these interconnections, circular systems, and ties between past, present, and future.
Rome Point Seaweed Constructions, artist-made paper from seaweed (Codium fragile) and abaca, fencing, wire, 6 pieces at approx. 12 x 12 x 10 in. each, 2021
Exhibited at:
Homegrown Gallery, Providence RI
Bagasse Construction
Bagasse is the fiber left over from the industrial process of sugar cane production, a major crop in Louisiana. Bagasse paper was first made in Louisiana in the 1800s. I went to Alma, Louisiana to obtain the bagasse fiber from the Alma Plantation, one of the 11 remaining sugar mills in Louisiana. Bagasse is used to fuel the processing plant during harvesting season, but still each year about 60 percent of it is unused and discarded.
Handmade Paper from Bagasse (sugarcane) Fiber, 8" x 17" x 11", 2011
Private Collection
Mississippi River Mud Construction
Handmade Paper, Mississippi River Mud, 24" x 11" x 2" open, 2011
Exhibited at
Glassell Gallery, Baton Rouge LA
“Paper in Space,” Haggerty Gallery, University of Dallas, TX
Seekonk River Mud Constructions
Installation of handmade paper sculptural books made from Seekonk River mud and recycled paper scrap.
63 in. x 144 in. x 7 in., 30 objects at 16” x 8” each, 2013
Exhibited at
AS220 Project Space, Providence RI
1890 Bryant Street Studios, San Francisco CA
Constructions of Problematic Plants of Coastal Rhode Island
Handmade Paper from Phragmites Australis, Japanese Knotweed, and Codium Fragile – 2014 - A variable installation of 15 book constructions
Exhibited at AS220 Project Space Gallery, Providence RI