I guess if I had to show you the roots of Spiritual Archaeology, this would be my illustration: the fleeting moment of seeing these deer among the several young trees, one old tree, and these old iron wheels. All these layers of what this parcel of land has been, is, and could continue to be; layers of time stacked on top of each other into one image.

I used to write a lot of poetry, especially about dirt, farming, drought, missing home, and living in the desert of Idaho. When I wax poetic on soil, on the secrets of the land, on the air and the water, I do so knowing there were people here before us. Land ownership is weird, arbitrary, and violent. I also love where I live. It’s the tension of holding multiple truths. My family can be doing their best to be good stewards and soil conservators, and also be awash in the privilege of being land owners in a state that exists because of the violence Homestead Act. It’s a contradiction. I can’t explain it away, or fix it; I try my best not to white wash it.

I use a lot of vintage paper and other found materials for collage material in my artwork. This is a resource post where I’ll update periodically my favorite places to source my preferred kinds of materials.

Dictionary and book pages help infuse the work with meaning. And art is a meaning-making process— the creation, consumption, curation, collection of art requires meaning to be created and negotiated.

We spent a lot of time just looking at fabric. I still don’t know how there was so much! It was like an archaeological dig—the deeper we dug, the older the pieces, the more interesting the stories. In one drawer, we found several outfits my mom had cut out to make for me when I was a toddler.

All these layers? They are me. It’s the ogre and the artist. the 90s farm kid who collected troll dolls and the grown-up queer who gets lost deconstructing Shakespeare. I’m excavating my layers and putting them on the canvas. If something doesn’t look quite right, or something doesn’t feel true? If I have doubts about what it is that I’ve managed to dig up? I just add more paint.

My mom and I are so different. I like to see, to have open doors, open bookshelves. I like to be seen exactly as I am. My mom is more curated. The second guest room exists as a themed room. That’s its function. The door stays closed and sometimes she goes and sees how nice it looks, but if I put too many finished paintings in there, I have to move them because it ruins the vibe. not that anyone sees it, it’s just the idea of the vibe being ruined.

So now, when I don’t sort my laundry as much as I did before, I think of my grandma. And when I’m making things in the studio too complicated, I think “how can I make this simpler?” Because something doesn’t have to be hard or complex to be worth doing.

Here for your edification is the next installment of Things We Found While Cleaning:

Here for your edification is the first installment of Things We Found While Cleaning: