"[Aldo Leopold] emphasizes less the directly visible, scenic aspects of nature and more the conceptual – diversity, complexity, species rarity, species interactions, nativity, phylogenetic antiquity – the aspects of nature revealed by evolutionary and ecological natural history."
-Karl Benediktsson, “’Scenophobia,’ Geography, and the Aesthetic Politics of Landscape.”

I recently found out that I will be chairing the Student Panel at this year's Mid-America Print Council conference, taking place this November in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Our panel is titled "The Entrepreneurial Printmaker: Making Work Outside Academia" and will feature a round-table discussion with artist/printmakers that have found ways to create work without the support of an institution.

In addition, the 2012: Unknown Endings portfolio will be one of the exhibits at MAPC, on display at a local Cape Girardeau gallery. My major professor, Johntimothy Pizzuto, will also be coordinating a panel and giving a demo at the conference! More information about these events is forthcoming.

Secondary Sediments : vii

Above is a piece from a recent series of layered drypoints called "Secondary Sediments." This and another piece have been accepted into the MAPC juried show Contributory, on display at Spudnik Press through May 11.

This series of works responds to layering of landscape, memory, and the connection of humans to our surroundings. Forming an elaborate underpinning of our consciousness, the landscape that we choose to envelop ourselves within contributes to a greater sense of our own history and understanding.

"The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground."
-Dr. Carl Sagan, Cosmos

The opening for the 2012 Bemis Center Juried Show was on Friday evening. The event was very exciting to be a part of and very well-attended. I met many regional artists that are making interesting and also quite beautiful work. One artist whose work I really enjoyed was Colleen Lucas. Her images seem to speak about intimacy and physicality in a way that is not only personal to her, but identifiable to all of us in bodies.

I also saw people interacting with my work in a new way. Some viewers stayed with my piece for awhile and watched the entire video, and some really seemed to be talking about it beyond a few words in passing. Shannon Stratton from threewalls in Chicago, the juror for this year's show, was on hand to give a gallery talk. Artists also got a chance to discuss their work, so here you see a picture of me, answering a question about my little cart.
Talking about my work at the Bemis