MEMORIES OF HOME
The pieces in ‘Memories of Home’ are drawn from my earliest memories of the natural world, growing up in Woodstock, New York, surrounded by forests and once farm fields grown tangled and wild. It was here that I learned to recognize species, not only from sight but also from their calls and from the feathers and tracks that they left behind. I was transfixed by the metamorphosis of frogs, the cyclical migrations of hummingbirds, the sinister tinge of a parasitized nest and the quiet anticipation of a snake about to strike its prey. This sense of magic and precarious calm continue to draw me into close observation of the natural world.
FRESHWATER VALLEY
Great Blue Herons are the first bird I remember learning to identify. My family summers were set to the prehistoric cackling of a colony that raised their chicks across from my childhood home. The sight of them flying overhead with enormous sticks to fortify their nests was a sign of the shifting seasons, as much as Robins were a sign of spring. In ‘Freshwater Valley’ species common to freshwater ecosystems of the Hudson Valley swirl around a birch branch. The branch is held by a Great blue heron, a bold sentry of this fragile ecosystem. The skeleton of a Northern water snake hunts bullfrog tadpoles. A Belted kingfisher is poised to take flight. Water celery (Vallisneria americana), Claspingleaf pondweed (Potamogeton perfoliatus), and Common duckweed (Lemna minor) represent native freshwater aquatic vegetation, here drawn with a surreal translucency to represent the watery habitats they grow within. A small knot of nonnative Zebra mussels cling to the branch; these mussels introduced me to the concept of invasive species.
Limited edition prints available through Antler Gallery.
32” x 45” (81 x 112 cm)
HOME TOGETHER
My earliest encounter with wild nature was with a coyote, a childhood memory that has the blurry magic of a dream. Coyotes roamed the field across from my family’s house, howling as the sun set. Standing in the backyard one morning, I remember looking up and seeing a dog that was not a dog, the shiver of locking eyes with an animal whose presence was often felt but that was rarely seen. Ruby throated hummingbirds and White-tailed deer (depicted in ‘Home Together’ as a skull), were a more familiar, tamer form of nature, their wildness something I only came to appreciate in my visits home to the Hudson Valley as an adult. The hummingbirds would feed enthusiastically at my Mother’s feeders every spring and summer, arriving most years on Mother’s Day. My family’s relationship with deer would shift with the seasons. As spring progressed and our gardens blooms, hostilities would escalate. As the weather cooled we would declare a ceasefire, lobbing mealy apples into the backyard as a delicious respite from bark and twigs.
Original drawing available for purchase in my store.
36” x 28” (91 x 71 cm)
ACORN YEAR
Since leaving home, I have lived in six different states across the northern half of the country, experiencing seasons and cycles in many different ecosystems. What I envy most about the experience of rootedness that these years have lacked is a deep familiarity with place. My family’s experience in New York is shaped by the rhythms of seasons and the life cycles of birds, plants and insects that inhabit the woods around our home. I was fascinated to learn that a pattern that my family had noticed - heavy acorn years followed by years with abundant White-tailed deer - is part of a larger, well-studied web of forest life; the production of acorns is linked not only to the population of White-tailed deer, but also to White-footed mice, which in turn impact the population of the invasive Spongy moth, songbirds like the Red-eyed vireo, and deer ticks that carry Lyme disease. While White-footed mice lead to an increase in ticks, opossums are highly efficient tick destroyers, picking up ticks in their nocturnal travels and eating almost all of them as they groom themselves.
32” x 45” (81 x 112 cm)
COILED NEST
12” x 11” (30 x 28 cm)
‘Coiled Nest’ depicts species of the wooded areas of the Hudson Valley: a Northern black racer skeleton coils around the leaf-lined nest of a watchful Eastern chipmunk. Violet- touched polypores and Ghost pipes sprout between the snake’s vertebrae.
QUILL NEST
12” x 11” (30 x 28 cm)
This piece is a small celebration of the deep interconnectedness of species. The quills of a Porcupine cradle the sleeping kit of a Fisher, a Porcupine predator. Sprouting among the quills are the leaflets and flowers of a young American Beech tree, one of the Porcupine’s favorite food sources, and mushrooms (Cantharellus cinnabarinus and Cortinarius azureus), and Sweet fern geometer moths, all associated with beech trees.
MONARCH NEST
12” x 11” (30 x 28 cm)
In ‘Monarch Nest’ a Wood thrush is poised over its nest, protecting its three glowing eggs. The fourth egg, conspicuously speckled, belongs to the parasitic Brown-headed cowbird, a species that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The nest is supported by Milkweed, the host plant of the Monarch butterfly. Both the Monarchs and Wood thrushes will migrate great distances south after breeding in the Hudson Valley.