Forest Patterns

In the spring of 2022 I did a month-long residency at Pond Farm in rural Sonoma County, California, at the former home and studio of the Bauhaus-trained ceramics artist Marguerite Wildenhain. Pond Farm is in the Austin Creek State Natural Reserve, a 6,000-acre park of oak woodlands, chaparral, and redwood groves. The landscape was severely damaged by wildfires in 2020, but was green with spring’s new growth when I was there. These contrasts, combined with the influence of Wildenhain and the Bauhaus, inform the small gouache paintings in the Forest Patterns series. These pieces explore the angular patterns of blackened trees against the earthy bursts of new life.