Unfurling, Paradise Center for the Arts, Faribault: Carlander Gallery, 2024

I moved on New Years Eve, 2012. My rubber tree (ficus elastica) was the last thing in the moving truck and the first thing out. On New Years Day, 2013, I was convinced I’d killed my plant (with a little help from Minnesota winter). As the leaves slowly dropped, I saved them in penance, hoping to find a way to eventually make the best of it. I cut the stems down to the soil and continued watering, stubbornly wishing it to grow back. And it did. And is still thriving.

Since then, I have collected every leaf my rubber tree has dropped. As that initial batch of leaves faded and dried, they proved sturdy, resilient, and an attractive surface on which one who makes art out of non-traditional materials might work. Ten years later, it was time to start.

Life forces both rule and unite us. Each leaf is preserved to showcase its natural tone and linear pattern on one side and is rejuvenated with black paint and iridescent medium on the other. Representative of earth and light respectively, the necessity of water is likewise signified by the blue cord suspending the work. While adding visual weight, buttons are also used to stabilize and secure each strand, embodying gravity.

Contrasting the strength, endurance, and order of these components are monstera leaves (monstera adansonii). Paint-dipped and wire-wrapped, these treatments work together to reinforce the striking yet fragile foliage. Following the natural twists and turns of the wire & leaves, these components take a less compliant form to personify the non-linear trajectory of life; they reflect my ongoing struggle to relinquish control and surrender to the process.

The simultaneous and equal application of these dualities in surface treatments advocates not for an either / or, but rather, an all-at-once point of view. Natural or glamourized, light or dark, matte or glossy, straight or curvy, practical or decorative, none are better than another and something can be all these contradictions at once and still be whole. Life is complicated and some failures take a decade to mature into success.