Inheritance: The Endurance of Land

On view from September 3 - November 19, 2021 at the Foundry Art Centre, St. Charles, Missouri

Show Statement

“If you're intimate with a place, a place with whose history you're familiar, and you establish an ethical conversation with it, the implication that follows is this: The place knows you're there. It feels you. You will not be forgotten, cut off; abandoned.” - Barry Lopez

The stories and material keepsakes of my family were not passed down to me. For much of my life, what I did not know about my family haunted me. The popularity of shows like Finding Your Roots, Who Do You Think You Are? and websites like Ancestry show that I am not alone in my desire for answers about heritage. In an unconscious quest to better understand my mother, a relationship that was strained and long distance for most of my life before her early death, I focused on her people, relatively recent immigrants from Sweden and Finland. I always felt more drawn to my Finnish roots, perhaps because I know even less about them. It is from them, through my mother that I inherited my deep love of land and nature.

To make my work, I use hand stitching, weaving, quilting, and embroidery—traditional crafts associated with women and the domestic. From these associations, and time intensiveness of craft, I add conceptual layers to meditations on landscape and nature. My work is a map, an aerial view, a miniature landscape, a way to find home and connections, and a record of intimate knowledge of places, known and unknown.