Encouraging WeatherI make travel remotes.
Rain and Floods, TUG, 2021
My weather-ready remote controls are based on my own open-eye observations of heat and humidity as a Kansas transplant to south Texas. Below are a few examples of the categories of weather my small handheld weather remotes can help navigate. Some of my studies are based on science and fact and the rest is free sailing fiction.
Snow and Ice, HAIL PISTOL, 2021
High Winds, FAN, 2021
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Rain or ShineI create weather remote controllers in order to imagine myself a master manipulator of climate change. I also make them because I long to travel and disruptions due to weather are happening so disproportionately that peoples’ jobs and daily lives are routinely affected. I was surprised by how much, recently, when slightly bad weather, a day of blustery winds in South Texas, set into motion a cascade of events that sidelined 1500 American Airline flights nationally for four days.
An alternative emotional response to climate comes from having grown up in Kansas, on prairie my grandfather homesteaded with his team of six plow horses. It was Kansas where I walked among corn stalks and hay bales, in blue skies competing with clouds for rain. On the ground I stepped over bumpy outcroppings of limestone rock and heard farmers begrudge Juniper trees as weeds when clearing them from what, over time, became vast agricultural fields. Planning for what the weather might bring tomorrow, in Kansas, implied a long look at the one grand aspect of nature we could control- our own selves. I learned to face tornados. I became resilient. It was also humbling to feel responsible for growing food enough to feed the world. There were children starving in China, after all. Keeping one eye on the weather was wise because it conditioned the soil and soul, each day, four seasons every year. Where I live now and call home is Houston, Texas. Most every day blasts high humidity and heat- except for an intense short period this year when I saw fronds on tall palm trees blanketed in snow. Neither the Texas grid system, nor I, was prepared for those four days of freezing temperatures. Even the leaves on my indoor African violet suffered frostbite. And the years before that, you ask? A once-in-a-hundred-year flood happened two years in a row with a once in five-hundred-year flood following those. The question remains for me whether getting in a car when it starts to rain is safe. Our bayou waters can rise quickly in freeway underpasses and canoe rescues are dangerous during street rescues. With extreme weather more common, normal travel has become more complicated. Factor in a world-wide health pandemic, and my desire to travel is more like planning an escape. It's why making weather changing remote controllers hold an appeal- they allow me to imagine the very best. Personal BioI have an interdisciplinary MFA from the University of Houston, collecting graduate degree hours in Drawing, Painting, Ceramics, Printmaking, Photography, and Art History. I attended Fort Hays Kansas State University for my undergraduate art degree. Moving from the middle of Kansas to Wichita Falls, Texas, I took in two years of ceramics at Midwestern State University and became a production potter on arrival in Houston. As a studio potter I fired gas, electric, and raku kilns, and managed the studio as an artist cooperative.
Today, I am a full-time faculty member at Houston Community College, teaching Art History, Studio Art, Design and visual culture remotely and on campus, largely, to Houston's East End residents. I like curating exhibitions with visiting artists and collaborating with my students for pop-up shows in transitional spaces such as hallways, elevators, bathrooms, and stairwells. I'm married to an intelligent, witty, and wonderful man and together we raised two beautiful daughters, Senna and Laurel, who are now productive members of society in a world in need of their wisdom and ingenuity. |