Reconstructing the Sacred Grove
The five sculptures on this pedestal are an invocation of the backyard of my youth, a space nestled between Central Pennsylvanian suburbia and a tangled greenbelt of land. My relationship with nature was shaped by this landscape, and cultivated by parents who took care to pull the forest back into our property, nurturing a space that we could cohabit with the wilder things of this world. It was here where I was taught to look quietly and listen closely. I learned that if I did so, a hidden world would be revealed. Nestled on their platform, these sculptures are a reforming of these memories, pulling them back into concrete reality through the shaping of clay. Half-concealed animals appear throughout the dense vegetation and bending branches of each piece, teasing that a better view of them may be possible, if only the viewer takes a closer look.
They Rest Within, 2020, Ceramic
There once was a baby eastern cottontail. We found him bloody by the side of the road and nursed him back to health. When he was strong enough, we let him out into the yard. He bounded around us in ever wider concentric rings, stretching his legs truly and fully for the first time. He had a scar on his nose and a notch in his ear, but he glided across the sloping ground like a bird in flight. When he was finished, he rested near the place where we sat. We stayed with him until he hopped away. Eventually, he settled in the bush beside our porch stoop. When we passed it, we could hear him shuffling within. My father would sit on the step and the little rabbit would join him every so often, resting beneath the shelter of the branches, always slightly obscured. |
Our Ladon, 2020, Ceramic
There was a cherry tree, fully bloomed and carpeting the ground around it in plush pink. But its vibrant petals were eclipsed by the contrast of a dark form that twisted through its branches. A massive eastern rat snake decided to scale its limbs. The enormous snake draped itself among the branches, the long length of it appearing and disappearing in the masses of flowers. It stretched its head toward the sun and in that moment I felt that I was witnessing a myth -- a true myth -- something ancient and important. It was the serpent Ladon, the yard was the garden of the Hesperides, flipped to an eternal dawn instead of dusk. We watched it, stunned into silence. Its shining black scales glinted against the velvety softness of the cherry blossoms. Its sinuous neck wavered back and forth among the plumage of the tree. |
Seeking, Hiding, 2020,Ceramic
I have spent hundreds of hours searching the thick, bush-like tree in my backyard, trying to spot the birds who roost in it. It is in constant motion from the movement of flitting wings and feathered bodies. I have walked up to it many times, carefully peering into its branches to try to catch a glimpse of the birds who chirp to me from their hiding places. I imagine it must be completely full of thousands of tiny juncos, wrens, chickadees, and titmice, but I only ever see them when they choose to leave its cover, shooting out and back inside, seed in beak. I have to be content with the knowledge that they are there, that they are where they want to be, and that they are happy to be out of sight. They sing to each other, perhaps to me as well, and that is enough. |
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Within Their Bower, 2020, Ceramic
A brush pile rests at the edge of our property line. Each year deer mothers nest their newborn fawns within its broken branches. One summer, triplet fawns graced us. We watched them as they transitioned from the almost invisible pairs of eyes peeping up through the boughs of their bower to the rambunctious, bounding youths that poked around the yard and pronged around each other. We watched as their mother licked their coats into cow-licked swirls, one after another, as their siblings suckled. We watched as they shed their bright summer coats for the dull brown of their thick winter fur. As they stuck their tongues into the holes in the bird feeders that winter, still smaller than their mother, and one growing tiny budding antlers. In the spring, two daughters returned with their mother. They licked her face as they raised their fawns together in our brush pile. |
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Fox Den, 2020, Ceramic
There is an animal in this space who is unwanted by many, the small gray fox who slinks through the twilight and burrows beside a row of bushes. She moves like a ghost through the shadows of morning and dusk, or would if the squirrels where not so vigilant. When hawks appear, the squirrels vanish, their warning calls the only hints to their presence. When she saunters between the trees, they stand their ground, twenty feet up, yelling down to her with mouths open wide in protest of her company. She snaps at any close enough, though I have never seen her catch one. She is careful in her movements, but not quite fast enough to grab a squirrel in her jaws. Instead, she scavenges, burying tiny treasures along our property line, the soil carefully pushed back into place with her shovel-like head, stored for later. |