Boundary: something that marks or fixes a limit (as of territory). The line that divides one area of land from another.
The space at which our culture comes in contact with the environment inspires my creative work. Much can be understood about the nature of how our society defines its role and place within the natural world by the observation of this boundary.
I seek to address the demarcation of our species’ relationship with the land. Am I of the land or in the land? Each piece made within a lineage of exploration has set out to answer this question. Our identity as people and a nation are so often defined by our place within our environment and how we view our relationship with the natural world.
Absence and presence play a major role within my work. My explorations are based upon a response to an absence or an outside presence within a specific landscape. I have chosen to use the term “outside”, as I am describing something having an affect on the landscape and creating a disturbance that I feel. I am avoiding terminology like “unnatural” to describe the presence because “nature”, as William Cronon has stated in his book Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature ," is not very natural, if by nature we mean that which is untouched by humans; instead, nature is a profoundly human construction. Not only have wilderness areas been significantly affected by humans, but our very notions of nature have shifted through time in response to changing psychological, sociological, and religious beliefs."