As part of the Gifts for the River Project, I spent three months making various works in the woods that lined our local river, using materials that were provided by the natural cycles of nature. I spent many days in the woods, sewing leaves together, and having quiet conversations about resiliency and regeneration, about watchers, protectors, and witnesses and about human responsibility. Here, playing off traditional and contemporary representations in sculpture of Artemis, the Goddess of flora and fauna, and of protection and fertility, I sewed fallen leaves in the autumn woods into forms of fertility and placed them throughout the woods as representations of quiet witness, of protection, and of the promise of fertile renewal. 

 

For this work, I was racing against time and the deterioration of my materials, which ultimately meant I found myself sewing in 38-40 degree freezing rain for several consecutive days. It was several days afterward until I could fully feel my fingers again.

*Note: 
visible pins were lightly used temporarily only for determining  placement of leaves for documentation  then ALL pins were removed and only organic materials remained. A combination of sap and beeswax were sparingly used to hold the leaves in place until nature took its course.

This is one of my many conversations with the river and woods for the Gifts for the River project. To learn more about this project, go to www.giftsfortheriver.com.