Since 2021, I have been working in collaboration with composer and sound artist, Bruce Odland, on The Sound Forest, our collective response to being more in touch with nature.

A fusion of past and present via portals, each installation is site specific and calls upon all the senses. Discarded wood is transformed into 6-foot totems to celebrate the forest’s history and honor it as part of our disappearing natural world.

Our process is one of relentless sanding and oiling followed by the application of layers of encaustics to bring natural elements ‘back to life’. Layers of light-infused color in the scarred spaces combined with the circular shape of the cutout wood invite one inward and remind us of our place within the cycle of life.

Sound heightens the sensory experience and awakens memory as it imprints an important message about our present time. The hollowed-out craters hold and amplify audio recordings that murmur the sounds of the forest on all its levels at different times of day.

We are simultaneously sounding the alarm, expressing a last, desperate hope, and calling out for action.