My work uses the juxtaposition of natural and human-created elements to explore our relationship to the complex interconnectedness of all existence. Is human-made not also natural? At what point do our human products —physical, social and systematic—become unnatural or cross the line into something destructive? With our advanced status in the system, what are our responsibilities?

I primarily work in wood, stone, glass, and plasma. The wood and stone elements are foraged, rooted with a sense of place and the story of their own existence. The glass and plasma elements use human ingenuity to recreate natural elements and give form to the power carried by human existence.

Science and technology are intimately linked with wonder in my work. Through technologies that are new—or at least ones that are unfamiliar—I seek to open myself and others up to place of curiosity and wonder. Curiosity mixed together with wonder, as opposed to fear, sparks empathy. And from empathy comes kinship and positive action.

It is a powerful feat to be able to create glass, a material that forms naturally from a volcanic eruption. It takes knowledge and imagination to place lightening into a bottle. These are the inheritances we have as humans. What are we going to do with it?