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About the Curiosity Cabinet Collection:

 

Mixed Media (wood burning & acrylic paint on reclaimed materials)

Examining the impact our unstable climate has on phenology, species relocation and extinction. Each piece is paired with a poem centered on these urgent concerns.

 

The pandemic turned my focus back to my art practice. In many ways, this time has been draining and challenging regarding creative energy, but it has also clarified how much I need art in my life. Both my own and the work of others.

 

After the initial shock of the pandemic wore off, and I found myself with more free time at home, I started to fill it by creating new art. Painting, drawing, writing, and overall producing creatively in a way I hadn’t in years. It forced me to realize how much I missed the process of creating, how important it is, and how much of my time was filled with unnecessary activities. I used the time I suddenly had as an invitation to create again, and to remember why I love producing art and sharing it with others.

 

My partner converted his grandad’s old chicken coop on our farm (Forgotten Foods Farm) into a studio for me as a birthday gift, and I named it Chicken House Studio, and I went from making time for art occasionally to making art a priority. I found I was suddenly happier than I had been for a long time, despite the otherwise stressful state of the world. Art became my escape, my release, and my way to raise awareness for issues that haunt me. It has also been a refuge. During the pandemic that took on a much deeper meaning, and I found myself determined to hold onto this momentum, this motivation, and this desire to put myself out there as an artist.

 

Driving across our farm one evening, my kids and I saw a whippoorwill on the edge of the gravel road. We had heard it calling only minutes before, and the kids were elated. They had never seen one. The whippoorwills I remembered calling in cacophony each summer evening growing up were nearly mythical for my own children. I needed to share the hurt this realization surfaced and participate in the discourse surrounding climate change, so I set to work on a new collection of visual art.

 

This collection is mixed media wood-burning and acrylic paint on reclaimed cabinets doors highlighting species native to the Appalachian woods. It is named for the predecessor to museums, the curiosity cabinets people displayed in their homes to house their favorite nature finds, and it highlights species abundant in the woods during my childhood that have declined to scarcity in my adult life or are in danger of their populations dwindling or even dying off due to resource extraction and climate change, and the impact our unstable climate has on the phenology of native plants and animals because of early warming, late freezes, and drastic alterations in the natural rhythms to which they have adapted. Plants, animals, and even fungi we walk past and take for granted. I want us to notice them, to appreciate them, to take delight in them while we can.

 

I made many of these pieces during a fundraiser for RO Forest School, a program committed to connecting children and their families with nature. The fundraiser, called Zungunruhe, named for the restless energy birds feel during spring migration, and which began in spring 2020 as a way to help folks channel restless energy into a personalized goal from the end of March to the beginning of May.. I challenged myself to create 5 new pieces throughout the weeks of Zungunrhue, and found the energy and accountability of being part of a community working toward their own goals inspiring, motivating me to go beyond my original goal.

 

I would like to create more conversation surrounding the issues this collection highlights through social media posts and continue the discussion throughout the exhibition of this collection as well as after it closes. I hope to encourage people to act and get involved in working to prevent further damage to our ecosystems and to improve the world not only for our children, but also for these incredible lifeforms we share our planet with.

 

The Curiosity Cabinet Collection will be displayed alongside several of my poems centering on those themes at the Rowan County Arts Center in Morehead, KY. The exhibit will open during the Morehead Hometown Holidays festivities the first Saturday in December and will run through February 3, 2023.