Nature and Gardens
In 2002, I moved to an area with a strong agricultural history and spent the first two years deeply involved in historical research and house/barn renovation. Previously living in NYC had brought new thoughts about energy patterns. In 2004, I began creating gardens, which led to making limited edition artist's books as a way to document my projects and observations about time, change, and transformation. My work changed from meditative stitching, to physical action and more external narrative.
In 2008, I spent a week at Zen Mountain Monastery (Mount Tremper, NY) in the photography workshop of John Daido Loori, professional photographer, founder and abbot of the monastery. It was to be his last workshop, as he died in 2009, leaving a most wonderful book, The Zen of Creativity. It became apparent that the digital camera was the tool I needed to use for capturing moments of time. He nurtured my desire for quiet sitting, meditating and observing, but with a camera I could be outside more easily recording the patterns of nature and absorbing her energy.
More recently my work combines:
sitting/ moving
outside/inside
constructing/deconstructing
photography/stitching
and narrative with more symbolic meaning.
Mostly it comes from hours spent observing gardens, a microcosm of order, chaos, and the life and death of plants.
