Grow Where You're Planted
Since my arrival in Tennessee in 2011, I have been fascinated by the incredible rate of biological growth at nearly every granular level of nature: mold, plant, insect and animal. I have been dumbfounded to see people garden with a machete and prune our local hackberry trees with a chainsaw, only to see them sprout thick fuzz of leaves when spring came around. No specimen has captured my imagination like the vine: Gill-Over-the-Ground, Balloon Vine, Leatherleaf Clematis, Virginia Creeper, Crown of Thorns, and king of them all Kudzu. I want to pay homage to the marvel I feel as the robust growth of vines turns majestic trees into colossal drum sticks, transforms utility poles into chrysalitic cocoons and conjoins houses under the tight knit of tendril coverlets. Through my artwork I hope to explore the form and implied meanings within this miraculous blight of fecundity.
