Rupture and Reweaving
GRASS COCOON | JUNE 2018
I contemplated making Grass Cocoon for two years. The image was persistent and it took up residence in my imagination, so I finally committed to making it and enlisted the help of friend, naturalist, educator, basket-maker, and now beloved model, Nicole Larson.
I doubted and judged this project every step of the way, even on the day that I made it. If I hadn’t made a plan with Nicole to meet at a certain time and day, I surely would have doubted this piece into non-existence, and I would likely be a librarian right now instead of an artist.
This piece changed my life. It was shared widely on social media and was well received (aside from abundant concerns about ticks and chiggers.) From this experience I learned to just make the things I wanted to make, without judgement.
I learned that it is possible to scrutinize an idea, and to apply a formal decision-making process to each piece, without assigning value. I decided to let other people decide if my work has value to them, and to remain confident about the essential role of my work in my life. After all, when everything is said and done, these are experiences I want and need to have.
In short, I learned to wrestle the voice of self-doubt into submission, at least long enough to make these pieces, and give them a chance to see the light of day.
LACE SKIRT | JULY 2019
Driving through Silverdale, Washington, I passed an abandoned lot that was full of Queen Anne’s Lace. The plants were enormous and there were hundreds of them. As I continued driving, the Queen Anne’s Lace took root in my imagination, and before long I envisioned a skirt made of the stuff, with a woven cotton bodice.
I returned to the lot the next day and harvested a small portion of the flowers on the site. I worked on the piece for two days, storing the work in progress upside down in a bucket of water to keep it happy overnight.
I didn’t have a model lined up and the piece needed to be documented right away, so I decided to wear it myself. Right before the shoot, it seemed to me that the white cotton of the bodice was just too white. I wanted to dye it a light pink, so I scoured my house looking for food coloring or dye, or anything liquid and red that I could quickly apply to the cotton. Alas, all that I could find was an ancient bottle of Nyquil. It was in fact liquid… and red. So, reluctantly I watered down the Nyquil, brushed it onto the bodice of my skirt, and went to the shoot.
My husband shot the pictures, conferring with me about the angles, distances, poses, and light. Our sweet dog Oso was with us in the field that day and was intrigued by my new Nyquil smell.
This piece was, and continues to be, a joy.
EXTENSIONS | DECEMBER 2020
This piece was a product of spending many hours exploring my favorite Port Townsend field. I had long felt a profound connection to this place and was trying to find a way to express my feelings of devotion and love for it. I wanted to find a visual way to express my deep feeling of connection to this land. When you look long and hard enough, sometimes you get lucky and land on an idea that feels right. Having had very long hair my whole life, a braid seemed like a natural way to connect my model to the earth. This piece came to me from wherever ideas come from, and I will be forever grateful for it.
In both “Grass Cocoon” and “Extensions” my model, Nicole, could not walk away from her situation. She was literally bound to the Earth. She was also profoundly at peace with her condition. We cannot escape our relationship with the natural world. There can be no “us” without “it.”
KATRINA | SEPTEMBER 2021
Over the years, I have come to know and love the bull kelp that I find washed up on our Puget Sound beaches.
On a mid-September day, I sat on the beach, lamenting the passing of summer and the likelihood that this piece would have to wait until the following year. A few moments later, Katrina ran past me on the beach. I’d never seen her before. I’m pretty sure my heart skipped a beat or two. On her way back, I blurted something out about needing a model for a project and would she consider working with me. As luck would have it, she didn’t think I was crazy, and my kelpy vision came to fruition the very next day. I’m still counting my lucky stars.
I built this piece directly on Katrina’s body, and yes, the thin straps of the bodice are indeed made of kelp. Making this piece and working with Katrina, the kelp, the tide, and the sun, felt like a crazy miraculous dream.
GREY STUDY WITH ALISON | AUGUST 2022
The brutal, inconceivable, utterly devastating truth of the matter is that I lost my beautiful 23-year-old son, Corbin, to an accidental overdose on February 5th, 2022.
Since then, my life has been a complicated grueling mess. No idea which way is up. No thought in my head except Corbin. Mental and emotional anguish. No interest in anything. No motivation except my own survival, and that of my daughter and husband. My creativity came to an abrupt halt. The agony of this loss has been all consuming. There is more to say, but not here.
Grey Study with Alison is a project that I started working on before I lost Corbin. I took a stab at it a year and a half ago and couldn’t pull it together. My model lived too far away. The weather would shift before she could meet me. And the fennel skirt deteriorated due to moving it in and out of the car too many times. I gave up on it for a time and then later asked my dear friend Alison if she would model for me. Her lovely mom, Joy, an accomplished knitter, agreed to knit a sweater for the project. I recreated the fennel skirt this spring and we waited for a foggy morning to shoot the piece. We got our chance on Tuesday, August (we call it Faugust here in Port Townsend) 23, and I was able to pull myself together for the project despite inertia and self-doubt. I cried a lot afterward.
The piece seems to capture the vastness of my grief and the acute sense of loneliness that I’ve felt since losing my son. If I had to assign a color to the grief experience it would be the color grey.
Alison was the perfect model and muse for this project, not only because her hair is the most lovely warm grey color that worked so well with the color of her sweater, that worked so well with the color of the dried fennel stalks, that worked so well with the cloth with which I wove them together. And not only because of the subtle gestures of her head and hands and shoulders that somehow conveyed my sadness and aloneness so well. But because without her, I would not have survived these last 7 months.
PHOENIX FROM THE FLAME | DECEMBER 2023
When I lost Corbin it felt like I died too. Everything went dark. Eventually, I discovered that there was a tiny ember still burning in me somewhere, and I knew that I needed to keep it alive. I needed to feed it. That’s where the idea for this piece came from. As I was preparing the materials for this project this summer, Sinead O’Conner, a hero of mine, tragically died. Like me, Sinead also lost a son in 2022, and I think maybe she couldn’t keep her ember going. I decided to dedicate this piece to her. It’s the least I could do for my wild courageous hero.
To all of you who are experiencing trauma, pain, or loss, please try to keep your ember going. I will do the same.
MARLO WITH QUILT IN CEDAR GROVE | DECEMBER 2024
The idea for this bark blanket dropped into my mind while I was admiring various pieces of bark that adorn my studio. I chewed on the idea a bit, and settled on the unlikely concept of a patchwork quilt made of bark.
I feel in retrospect that this project blends the tradition of the patchwork quilts of my New England upbringing, with the traditional cedar bark clothing of the Northwest Coast Native American cultures. My being an adoptee of the Northwest Coast landscape, this mixture feels apt.
This project is yet another attempt on my part to describe my belief that nature can heal and comfort us, and that we are part of the fabric of the natural world.
Artist’s Statement
I work in nature to address issues concerning humanity and the Earth. I am profoundly moved by the natural world, and I am fortunate to live close to beaches, forests, and fields that inspire and sustain me and also provide me with the raw materials required to make my work.
My goal is to express, as beautifully and as compellingly as I can, the contents of my inner world and imagination, as well as my preoccupation with the relationship between humans and nature. With my work, I attempt to describe a connectedness between us and our environment that seems to have been all but forsaken. I hope to nurture this dynamic relationship, which is our birthright and obligation, and to perhaps even rekindle and reawaken a yearning for it in others. Simultaneously, I hope to satisfy my own need to embed myself in nature.
Issues that are of preoccupying concern to me include racism, sexism, climate change, patriarchy, and capitalism. Movements that I support and hope to advance include Black Lives Matter, intersectional feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. I see an obvious correlation between the mistreatment of the Earth and the mistreatment of women and all marginalized human beings.
Finally, I wish to respectfully acknowledge that the land upon which I live and work is unceded ancestral land of the Coast Salish peoples.
