Water Is Life

Dairy Art Center

My artwork explores symbiotic and reciprocal relationships between humans and their environments. These exchanges provide mutual benefits; however, such equitable harmony is arguably out of balance today. In 2009, a group of 28 scientists from around the world came together to create the “planetary boundaries framework,“ which identified nine processes required to maintain life on Earth. Humans have surpassed the safe threshold for four of these boundaries. (1) Rather than dwelling on this ominous danger, my curiosity about the possibility of equivalence drives my creative process.

The Colorado River (2019) lace drawing is a blueprint of the river’s 1,500 miles presented in overlapping five-mile segments. Today, this river rarely flows the entire 1,500 miles from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California. If this drawing were created today (2022), it would be considerably smaller. Color Samples from twenty-five points along the Colorado River continue to articulate essential data about our water supply. A viewer can easily see the undulating color back and forth between flowing water and dry land, highlighting the complicated and strange predicament of having too much water and not enough at the same time. This artwork continues to incorporate ideas about interconnected relationships through material and concepts that address global warming, our human impact, and the possibility of equilibrium and reciprocity with our environment.