Projection mapping on the sails of the Schooner Actress, in conjunction with Maine Maritime Film Festival

This project took place in Bucksport, ME, in the Fall of 2017 and 2019 as part of the International Maritime Film Festival (IMFF.)

The International Maritime Film Festival was founded in 2014 to bring life and vitality to downtown Bucksport by using documentary film as a way to attract new people to town and to provide the residents with a unique artistic endeavor. IMFF is a partnership between Main Street Bucksport, Wooden Boat Publications, The Island Institute, and World Ocean Observatory.The projection event was free to the public. It was a community-wide celebration of film and our shared maritime history.

The triangular shape of the sail combined with imagery that references the boat's architecture meld into a unique visual experience. The boat and its projection are self-referencing the experience of being in and on the water. The size of the schooner and the access to Bucksport's dock allows me to cover the whole sail making the illusion complete.

This was my third experience projecting on the sails of a boat. The trust and willingness of the boat's captain to participate in the event and the town made it possible. Rehearsals are essential. Weather, the direction of the wind, and controlling the ambient lights from streets and local businesses are some considerations to make the projection successful. The viewer is transported when all the elements have been navigated and come together.

Two Second Proposal is a 12-channel, 360-degree projection.

Thoughts of frogs evoke evolution, childhood, and biology class, but this series was a reaction to the Gulf oil spill in 2010. I remember a churning frustration over the slow response and empty efforts of BP and our government; the devastation of sea creatures, birds, beaches, families, and livelihoods, with ground and water pollution reported in soundbites, as robots and equipment malfunctioned, incapable of coping with the disaster.

Meanwhile, in Montville, Maine, I observed tadpoles darting beneath the water’s surface, the youthfulness of a pollywog, the stoic nature of a frog. There was a feeling of point-counterpoint. The oil spill in the Gulf was out of control, while in the lilypond next to my house, nature thrived. Sometimes there is a need to stop the madness, breathe, and take time to wonder. These photos reflect those moments. In the early morning or evening, I would let my eyes relax and adjust to the nuances of light and dark, and then the frogs would appear.

From Cape Ann to Cape Cod- Treasure hunt/beach cleanup

Arcadia Utopia - An installation and conversation ruminating on technology and the environment.

The sculpture Litmus Test questions how willing we are to change our behavior when we know the environmental impact of our actions. A Litmus Test is a 6’H x 1’ W column of plastic water bottles that graduate from clear to bright red, signifying danger while mimicking the changes in color created in litmus paper when exposed to changes in pH. A survey asking participants their thoughts on rethinking plastic water bottles engages with participants. Cognitive dissonance won out.

Created in conjunction with Flow at Fort Knox, Prospect, ME, a collaboration with Coaction lab. Plastic water bottles, red dye, 6’H x 1’W circumference, 2017,

A historical perspective of a mill town and the closing of the plant.

From 2016-2019, I lived in the Heyward house, a historic building on Main St. in Bucksport, Maine, a block from the North East Historical Film Society. The conversation that informs a large part of Bucksport’s identity is between the past and the present. With the closing of the paper mill, the town was actively trying to attract new business and reimagine its identity. The town is situated along the banks of the Penobscot River across from Fort Knox and the Penobscot Bridge. Historical footage of the town, the people, and the early technology responsible for the local industries is preserved at the NEHFS.

My idea was to combine animations of the historical buildings with some of the footage available at the NEHFS for pop-up projections around town. In the old Road Runner cartoons, the Road Runner would draw a window to escape from Wiley Coyote. My animations of historical buildings and superimposed historical footage created a similar parallel dimension for the viewer. I projected onto architectural spaces in the current downtown images, creating a double consciousness of Bucksport’s path as it moves in and out of its history.

Lifespan, created during quarantine, entwines thoughts on the fragility of life and our environmental cognitive dissonance. Translucent cell-like structures made from plastic beverage containers arc across the wall, while a sense of time is marked by the pulse of an LED programmed to fade in and out. Eventually, the light will die like our cells but the plastic will be around for another five hundred years.

I have been working on projections and short performances to accompany future installations. If you know of spaces or residencies that would help me grow these ideas I would love for you to share my work.

Transparency is a series of prints created by overprinting a matrix of Platonic solids. Many systems begin with an ideal: Platonic solids, computer code, and financial institutions, for example. As information multiplies, the clarity of the system’s objective becomes obscured. Some of these prints have transparent frames, leaving the workings of the microcomputers behind the print exposed to the viewers. A motion sensor triggers the lights from the microcomputer. I’m intrigued by the similarities across disciplines. The resulting changes are due to genetics, stories passed through generations, information coding, and how these changes impact lives.

Codes from DNA to our banking systems reveal and hide truths. I repeatedly printed a stencil that was a two-dimensional matrix for a three-dimensional Platonic solid in this series of prints. The overlay created a new image that obscures the underlying patterns. In the larger world, the tendency for systems (i.e., banks, genetic code, platonic and utopian ideals) to become unreadable also makes abuse symptomatic. Transparency is called for when there is a need for more disclosure, often after the fact. Appearances can be illusions; how do we see past our first assumptions to discover deeper truths? How do we avoid corruption and its potential to undermine our ideals, whether platonic, utopian, genetic, or monetary? Changes come about through repetition — a story changes with time.

Compost Head is a redesign of a sculpture I made in 1996 as part of Environmental Arts, a show in Brockton, Massachusetts, at the Fuller Museum of Art.

A body’s relationship to the landscape, and the organic,

symbiotic nature of life, is reflected in compost’s constant flux. The compost material in the head rises and falls as it decomposes, and the public adds new material.

The figure, death, dust to dust, blood sacrificed for the land we love are all metaphorical characteristics associated with landscapes.

The eco-historian Paul Shepard’s metaphor of soil as skin also pertains to this piece.

“Just as blood moves through the body importing and exporting diverse substances to the outside world, so worms and microbes course through the soil, aerating it, turning it over and transforming things at the end of their lives, corpses, wastes and decay into fresh soil where the cycle will begin again.”

Compost Head is functional in that it can be used and is useful. The compost will eventually become soil used in a garden where food is grown.

1996, 5’ L x 2’ 8”H X 4’W, wire and compost.

Compost Head, redesign

2016 5’ L x 2’ 8”H X 4’W, wire and compost. The redesign is divided into two halves, making it easier to access the compost.

A Necklace of Farms