The Story of Materials

The Beginning: How Value Becomes Practice

My relationship to materials didn’t begin in a studio. It began in tents, cabins, and campgrounds across New York, where “leave no trace” wasn’t a philosophy; it was just how you behaved. Later, traveling along both the eastern and western coasts of the United States taught me to treat every environment with respect: take nothing, leave nothing, disturb nothing.

As I grew into adulthood, those early lessons deepened. I was taught to see nature as a finite resource, one that required care, replacement, and responsibility. That mindset shaped how I moved through the world long before I called myself an artist.

Traveling through Europe with the military further shifted my understanding. There, green spaces were protected intentionally, not treated as expendable. And for the first time, I became aware that indoor spaces are environments too, shaped entirely by human decisions. That realization influenced everything from how I made purchases to how I eventually built my studio.

Those early values didn’t make me a “nature artist.”
They made me someone who carries responsibility into every environment I enter, including the one I create through my materials.

Bioresin: Choosing a Material That Honors Both Health & Values

Resin has a long and complicated history in the art world. Synthetic resins have been used since the mid-19th century, but they’re among the most toxic materials artists have ever worked with. Abstract artist Eva Hesse, whose work I deeply admire, was both propelled to fame by her pioneering use of polyester resin and ultimately lost her life to the very material she worked with.

Her story stayed with me.

I couldn’t deny my own connection to resin — its transparency, its ability to hold light, its capacity to suspend memory — but I also couldn’t ignore my health. With asthma, chemical sensitivities, and children who also have respiratory conditions, traditional resin was never an option I could safely use in my studio or home.

If I wanted to work with resin, I had no choice but to find an alternative.

My lifelong commitment to sustainability is what led me to bioresin. The resin I use is made from naturally occurring resins derived from dead trees and agricultural byproducts, rather than from petrochemical compounds refined from fossil fuels. In other words, it comes from the natural breakdown of organic matter — not from digging up dead dinosaurs.

No material is perfect. Nothing is 100% eco-friendly. But shifting from petroleum-based resins to plant- and tree-derived alternatives was a significant and necessary step for me. It’s one that aligned with both my ethics and my health. Even now, after years of working with it, I stand by this decision completely.

Bioresin asks for patience. It behaves differently. It refuses to be rushed. In many ways, it reshaped my practice for the better.

Working with bioresin allows me to create pieces that hold light with a clarity that feels both physical and philosophical. The material aligns with my values and supports my well-being. It lets me build sculptures and mixed-media works without contradicting the environmental ethics I live by every day.

Bioresin isn’t a substitute. It’s the material that allows me to align with my art, my values, and my body.

Paper, Ink, & the Quiet Ethics of Printmaking

My relationship with printmaking didn’t begin with confidence; it began with hesitation. When I first explored offering prints, several printers told me the same thing:

“There’s no way to make printing sustainable.”

That didn’t sit right with me.

Everything in my life, from the way I camped as a child to the way I purchased goods as an adult, was shaped by the question of responsibility. I wasn’t willing to compromise just because I loved the idea of sharing my work in print.

My first prints were of Visiting the Ancestors. They were printed on recycled polyester, long before sustainable substrates were a mainstream conversation. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a beginning — proof that alternatives existed if you were willing to look for them.

When I began printing the Earthbound collection, I knew I wanted a paper that reflected the same ethics that shaped my materials and my practice. That’s how I found Hahnemühle, one of the oldest paper manufacturers in the world and a leader in sustainable fine art substrates.

What drew me in wasn’t their reputation; it was their philosophy.

For more than 440 years, Hahnemühle has combined traditional papermaking with environmental responsibility. They prioritize clean water, natural fibers, low-impact manufacturing, and rigorous sustainability standards. Their certifications — ISO 14001, ISO 50001, EcoVadis, SEDEX — aren’t marketing badges. They’re proof of long-term accountability. They’ve built their company around respecting land, resources, labor, and community.

Their commitment mirrors my own.

Using Hahnemühle paper lets me create prints that are archival, museum-quality, and environmentally responsible without sacrificing depth, vibrancy, or longevity. It’s another way my lifetime of values becomes part of my artistic practice: turning the quiet ethics of care into something tangible.

Printmaking, for me, isn’t just reproduction. It’s a continuation of my commitment to make choices, material, ethical, and environmental, that honor both the work and the world it enters.

How Lifestyle Becomes Practice: The Networks That Support My Choices

My personal values led me to sustainable communities long before I ever built an art business. I didn’t suddenly “decide” to care about the environment when I became an artist. My life was already built around conscious choices, responsible consumption, and respecting the places I inhabit.

I found 1% for the Planet because I’d been an REI member for years — and REI’s environmental commitments aligned with the way I was already living. I became aware of renewable energy networks like Energea and accountability tools like GoodAPI because sustainable power, ethical sourcing, and measurable impact were already part of how I ran my household. I found safer art materials the same way I found everything else: through years of independent research, curiosity, and the desire to leave the smallest possible footprint.

These weren’t trends I adopted. They were the natural outcome of a lifestyle that viewed every environment — indoors and out — as something we are responsible for. So when I eventually built my art business, I didn’t need to invent a sustainability framework. I simply extended the one I was already living in into the studio.

My business has been a 1% for the Planet member since 2021. I’ve been investing in renewable energy projects since the first week of 2023, and those investments have already generated 13.147 MWh of solar power. That’s enough to offset a meaningful portion of my studio and household footprint.

It shows up in the smallest details, too: my toilet paper is bamboo, my lights are LED, and my decisions, big and small, are guided by the same value system I’ve carried since I was young.

My commitment isn’t aesthetic.
It’s lived.
It’s embedded.
And it’s real.

Integration: Building Only What I Need

I’m still rebuilding. That’s part of why everything in my studio and my life moves slowly right now. I don’t want to recreate what I had. I want to build only what I actually need.

That intention changes everything.
It means choosing contractors and companies that protect the environment, selecting equipment that protects my health and my life, and working with materials that are safe not only for me in my studio, but also for the people who will eventually live with my work.

Rebuilding isn’t about returning to a previous version of myself or my practice. It’s about constructing a studio ecosystem where every decision, from electrical upgrades to ventilation to the materials I pour, aligns with the values I’ve carried since childhood.

This isn’t reinvention.
It’s refinement.
It’s responsibility.
It’s the slow process of letting my values guide each step forward with clarity.

What It Means for the Work I Create

Sustainability isn’t an aesthetic for me, and it’s not something I apply to finished pieces as an afterthought. It’s a lived relationship with land, responsibility, and care shaped across campgrounds in New York, solidified through global travel, and reinforced through the realities of raising children with asthma and navigating my own health.

My materials are the physical expression of that relationship.

Every resin pour, every substrate choice, every print paper, every energy investment mirrors a lifetime of carefully choosing, deeply questioning, and respecting the environments I inhabit, whether those environments are forests, homes, or studios.

What I create carries that lineage.

Art is Autobiography.
And the autobiography woven into my materials is about intention, stewardship, and a commitment to building a practice that is safe, honest, and aligned for the people who bring my work into their own spaces and for me.