Part of the Earth Remains constellation
This series begins with the premise that waste holds memory.
Industrial runoff, wildfire ash, and poisoned shorelines become collaborators—agents of image, color, and decay. These works are not representations of damage; they are entangled with it.
In Rivers Remember, pigment extracted from iron oxides filtered out of polluted water becomes paint—refusing to forget what the river carries.
In Anatomy of the Atmosphere, chemically wrecked film is exposed to the Salton Sea, its emulsion blistered by vinegar, sun, and salt—echoing the collapse of an ecosystem in real time.
In Geyserville Burn, cyanotype paper is rubbed in chemical fire retardant, ash, and debris at the origin point of a climate-induced wildfire. Exposed in sunlight and rinsed in a surviving stream, each image bears witness through direct contact with what remains.
Each work becomes a site of alchemical testimony—where toxicity, time, and transformation converge.
Waste Alchemy: Rivers Remember
Oil paintings made with iron oxide pigment collected from polluted rivers, 2025
These three oil paintings were created using pigments filtered from rivers once choked by iron-rich mining waste. The ochres and reds are not traditional earth pigments, but residues of environmental collapse: iron oxides and minerals extracted from contaminated waters.
And yet, from this toxic matter, life is returning.
Each painting is both elegy and offering—holding the trace of destruction and the quiet promise of renewal, as rivers that once ran red begin to breathe again.
When Rivers Run Red speaks to violence rendered visible.
Iron Nests evokes strange habitats shaped by toxicity and rebirth.
Silt Choked listens to the suffocation—and slow resurgence—of once-living waters.
They mark the threshold between ruin and resilience—where transformation begins.
Exhibition History
Exhibited in Bodies and Borders: Ecologies of Consent
The 109 Gallery, Chickamauga, GA + Online via Kunstmatrix
October 1, 2025 – January 31, 2026
Presented by Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD) | Curated by Leah Dalton | Juried by Beverly Naidus
View exhibition PDF →
Watch my IG Reel about this work/exhibition here 🔗
Anatomy of the Atmosphere
Wrecked film soaked in vinegar, oil, and desert heat, exposed at the Salton Sea—an ecosystem on the edge of collapse.
Anatomy of the Atmosphere
This image was made at the Salton Sea, a collapsing ecosystem in Southern California’s desert. Using a Holga 35mm camera and a roll of color film, I photographed toxic residue along the shoreline—salt scars, poisoned pools, blistered ground.
After exposure, the film was submerged in a destructive mixture of olive oil, vinegar, salt, and boiling water, then baked in 120°F sun and tumbled in a clothes dryer. The emulsion blistered and bled, echoing the damage done to the land itself.
Wrecked film, wrecked ecosystem—and still, beauty bleeds through.
Exhibited in Sempiternal, Monat Gallery, Madrid, Spain, May–June 2025.
Geyserville Burn
Cyanotype on paper (5 panels), 16 x 20 in. each · Geysers Rd., Geyserville, California · February 2020
At the origin of a wildfire sparked by global warming, I found a landscape marked by rupture. Trees stood like black matchsticks against a bright blue sky. Ash coated the ground. Pale yellow chemical fire retardant clung to every surface. The fear was still present. And yet, several small streams continued to flow.
I brought paper coated with an eco-friendly UV-sensitive emulsion. I rubbed each sheet in fire retardant, ash, and debris, then placed it in the stream. Sunlight poured down, and the exposure began.
This work is a collaboration with what remained—and with what was lost. I was keenly aware of the death all around me: trees, insects, birds, animals, and unseen lives extinguished. The air was full of ghosts. The land was speaking in traces.
Geyserville Burn is not documentation.
It is an act of co-creation and witness—where fire, poison, water, and light carry the voices of the more-than-human.
A record made through contact.
A grief ritual in cyanotype.
