Strange Weather: In the Eye of the Storm is an ongoing series that explores site specificity, changing climatic patterns, and narratives of home.
The works are a reflection on the most notable sensations I have from growing up in Oklahoma: experiencing the weather. There are few places on the earth where one becomes as intimate with the tornado. Extreme weather defines Oklahoma, and her people. More frequently, people all over the world are experiencing extreme weather. I create sculptural forms that mimic tornados and other storm patterns to prompt intimacy with the ephemeral and the extreme.
I am drawn to visualizations of storm patterns: how they are mapped and graphed, the way that color is used in radar and storm graphics, photographic representations as they manifest in the media, cross-cultural symbolic narratives, and how we presently talk about these natural phenomena. Utilizing local newspapers as well as self-designed newspapers, ephemera, chance, history, scale, and time come into conversation in the large-scale sculptural works. There is a prevailing conversation about the perception of landscape; a dialogue between the imagery representing the land and the societal standards that are involved in placemaking. The facades therefore can be read as visual narratives about changing weather patterns and its public discourse.
This series is not only about the sculptural, but is also about collaboration, about dialogue. I had the pleasure of working with Radford University improv dance class and choir to create an evening of performances that we focused on Hurricane Harvey, just a month after the storm hit Houston. I have collaborated with choreographers and dancers to produce performances and experiences that have focused on climate change and as it functions in an extraction economy. I have also taught workshops on digital glitching and sun-printing, where the dialogue is focused around the term 'strange weather'.
Strange Weather has been installed at the CODA Museum in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, the Radford University Art Museum in Virginia, Klapper Student Gallery at Queens College, Living Arts of Tulsa, Governors Island Art Fair in New York City, the Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City, New York, The Queens College Library, New York, and in many public spaces across the United States, France, and India.