My work has always taken inspiration from the wish to decipher and “fix” complicated situations by searching for the underlying symmetry, harmony, and natural beauty in things. It was inevitable that environmental issues, having now become the most pressing of situations for all life on the planet, would eek their way into my research. I have lived around geologists and geology for most of my life. I am an American artist living in Italy. In 1993 I co-founded a geological observatory that has become, over the years, an international center for teaching and research. I teach visual perception to geology students.
I have been experimenting with the plastic material called Shrinky Dink for a few years now. It is a versatile material that after being put into the oven it shrinks, thickens and hardens.
I started out making mock thin sections like those scientists utilize for microscopic analysis. Then collaged the thin section images to other objects like the tree pies and the copper sieves.
The Mimbres Bowls; Man Made Holes series came about when I read about the Mimbres culture, which was centered near the southwest region of New Mexico. Their pottery was produced between 1000-1150 A.D.
A hole punctured in the center indicates that the bowl was ceremoniously “killed” allowing for the spirit of the image to be free, and so symbolically replenishing the “hole” left behind in nature.
I have made a series of bowls with images of some of the largest and deepest manmade holes on earth. I accompany them with their own Mimbres bowl in an attempt to remedy the damage done.
My recent work now showing at the Fondazione Orestiadi in Gibellina and curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, addresses earthquakes, specifically in Italy, and how Italians respond to living in a tectonically active country. I have referred to Italian cinema, especially neo realism, in order to understand better the relationship Italians have with the ground beneath their feet.
Are Italians somehow attached to the drama and fatalism connected with tragedy? The images in this body of work ask these questions. I have chosen frames from Italian movies that seemingly catch famous Italians in the exact moment of recognition that something is about to happen. I place these images alongside more abstract images of geological and seismic information. Through the images, I literally put the italians face to face with a tectonic reality. The title of the body of work is Waiting for the Next One, (Aspettando il Prossimo).
The research includes a series of 22 shrinky Dink plates, 7cm. in diameter, representing the most disastrous earthquakes in the history of Italy. Each plate is decorated in the typical tradition of that region along with information about that particular earthquake (date, epicenter, magnitude and number of victims). It is meant to give an immediate visual representation to the viewer of the breadth of Italian seismic activity. In another way the series is meant to persuade Italians to relate to the reality under their feet by greeting their regional sensibilities.




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