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Ephemeral Environments:

Reconnecting with Nature Through Impermanence

In support of MFA Thesis Exhibition, Spring 2015

Luisa Rivera

Thesis Committee Members:

Ryan Peltier, Mentor

Gretchen Gasterland-Gustafsson, Graduate Faculty

Piotr Szyhalski, Graduate Faculty

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I. Introduction

In the process of becoming settled, humanity has established boundaries to divide itself from the environment, because its idea of progress demanded so: to become an invader, first you must become an outsider. In that process of detachment, ‘nature’ became a cultural construct to describe everything that wasn’t or human-made. This philosophical demarcation, however, has always been debatable and now that we are experiencing an ecological crisis, it is even more questionable. Through the destruction of resources, we perceive and anticipate our own mortality, since human existence depends on them. This situation forces us to rethink the notion of nature because rather than being separate from it, we are part of nature.

The project that I am presenting for my thesis, Spreader, focuses precisely on this acknowledgment. Through elements of representation and narrative, I explore an ephemeral realm where the limits between the environment and are blurred in order to evoke a more complete conception of reality. Using painted and drawn paper cutouts, I created two works. The first one exists as a set of interventions in the public space, where I overlap small-scale cutouts with human-made sites. The second exists in the gallery, where I develop a more detailed and large-scale environment that allows me to move away from the smallness. The two manifestations of the project have in common the use of paper as primary material, the juxtaposition the natural world and humans, and the notion of the ephemeral. These key elements will be addressed in this thesis.

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The content of this paper unfolds three main sections. The first two describe the conceptual background of Spreader. A third segment overviews the project itself. In the first section, I refer to the cultural construct of nature in Western discourse, and how this has determined our relationship with the environment. In the second section, I will address the notion of impermanence, especially focused in the artwork, and the role that documentation plays in this context. In the third section, I present an overview and analysis of my thesis project. Although this segment is primarily focused on the formal aspects of the work, I incorporate elements from the previous sections since many decisions in Spreader are tightly related to that overall investigation.

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II. Where Do We Stand on Nature?

Defining or understanding the meaning of ‘nature’ has been an important topic of discussion in Western discourse and continues to be debated even now.

Even though the interpretations have been diverse and vast, especially since

Aristotle’s Physics, this research focuses mostly on how nature was conceptualized from modernity to our current context.

Modernity has always been linked to the historical phenomenon known as the Enlightenment, which we all learned to identify as an era of rationalism, individualism and rejection of tradition. Although this form of anthropocentrism seems secular, many of the protagonists of the Enlightenment were shaped by a previous way of anthropocentrism determined by Christianity: “most of the enlightened still retained a belief in God, even if they were hostile to the Church”

(Barnett 2). This religious legacy from Christianity influenced how intellectuals approached nature during modernity. As scholar of religion and philosophy Ronald

Massanari explains:

In traditional Christian ethics, . . . the themes of dominance and

stewardship often characterize the relationship of humans to nature. .

. . Identifying nature as profane provided a rationale for disregarding,

sometimes with contempt, nature and all that is in it. For the

dominance perspective, the relationship between human individuals

and the rest of nature is controlled by the assumed divine mandate

that humans can and should use everything else in nature for their

benefit. (28)

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Through this notion of domination, Christianity generated a clear separation between humans and the natural world. This is represented by the concept of

“dominion” (from Latin dominus 'lord, master'), which Christianity used in order to express and justify sovereignty over the earth.

Even though modern thinkers tried to distance themselves from this religious tradition, the anthropocentrism persisted and permeated, although in a new form shaped by rationalism and justified by philosophy. This is the case of Immanuel

Kant, who supported the anthropocentric dominance over nature in his Lecture on

Ethics (1779): “But so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties.

Animals are not self-conscious, and are there merely as means to an end. That end is man. . . . Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity” (Kant 239). Although in this statement Kant outlines some relation between humans and animals, by saying our duties to them are indirect and relegating animals to the category of means, he is arguing in favor of the hierarchical and dominant view drawn earlier by Christianity.

This kind of alienation between the human and nonhuman was accentuated by the industrial context that, according to Robin George Collingwood in The Idea of Nature, encouraged the progressive changing, rather than cyclical changing that was present in previous eras (13). This determined industrial growth, which forced modern society to become even more separated and alienated from the natural world. It is interesting to note that Collingwood first published The Idea of Nature in

1945, the same year the atomic era began. Within this context of self-destruction, our separation from the surroundings was reaching a new peak.

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When we take ourselves out of the equation, the idea of landscape emerges, as opposed to the notion of land. Simon Schama refers to this in

Landscape and Memory by stating “Landscapes are before they are nature, constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock” (Schama

61). In other words, Schama refers to the idea of the land transformed, either by our action or our perception.

Malcolm Andrews also addresses the problem of landscape in Landscape in

Western , where he develops the idea of the frame: “It gives the landscape definition. The frame literally defines the landscape, both in the sense of determining its outer limits and in the sense that landscape is constituted by its frame” (Andrews 5). In this, the idea of frame not only symbolizes the delimitation between nature and us, but also transforms the land into a flat and linear experience that we can access only as spectators, not as participants.

The main purpose of this separation has been the possibility of establishing a clear hierarchy that would allow humankind to dominate the space around itself.

Reconciling this relation of power has been a key factor in this overall discussion, especially for green theorists in the last decades:

[Theory] has assumed that because mountains and waters are

human at the point of delivery, they exist only as signified within

human culture. Thus they have no intrinsic merit, no value and no

rights. One function of green studies must be to resist this disastrous

error. (Coupe 2)

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In this statement Laurence Coupe, who has been contributing actively to ecocriticism since 2000, identifies and asserts the direct duties we have towards the environment.

But the question is: How do we reconcile our relationship with nature?

According to author Timothy Morton, who recognizes this idea of separation as a legacy from modernity (Morton 5), the shift in consciousness happens when we understand that we have never been separated from the environment in the first place: “Ecology includes all the ways we imagine how we live together. Ecology is profoundly about coexistence. . . . Human beings need each other as much as they need an environment” (Morton 4). Morton suggests that this new ecological awareness is similar to the one found in the Romantic period, and therefore we should look into it to find some answers ("Are You a Romantic?").

This artistic and intellectual movement known as “” originated in

Europe toward the end of the eighteenth century as a reaction to modernity (Löwy and Sayre 17) and the rationalism of the Enlightenment philosophy (8). Generating such a succinct definition borders on the impossible, because Romanticism generated very different nuances in every cultural realm (philosophy, , economy, politics, etc.) but such description is effective to understand the movement’s main attitude across the arts, which is the field analyzed in this paper.

Romantic authors believed themselves to be interconnected, not just with their emotions and other living beings, but also with the entire environment. Due to these characteristics, Morton finds the key to our current ecological condition in

Romanticism, and more precisely in the literary concept called Romantic Irony,

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This conception of reality present in the Romantic period was highly influenced by mythology, “both in itself and as a subject for ” (Zwerdling 447).

As an ancient expression, myths generated these encounters between humans and nature, which is what Joseph Campbell refers to as the “harmonizing force” of this tradition (Campbell and Moyers 66). If we observe Greek myths, we notice that they respond to the unknown with a rational thinking because, even if the explanations sound literary now, they were all elucidated as facts. Edith Hamilton, who devoted her career to the study of Classical Mythology, refers to this idea by saying “[a]nyone who reads [Greek myths] with attention discovers that even the most nonsensical take place in a world which is essentially rational and matter-of- fact. . . . The terrifying irrational has no place in classical mythology” (10). For

Hamilton, instead of expressing the magical or supernatural, these myths were almost primitive scientific explanation of natural occurrences and how everything came to exist in the universe (12). Therefore, in Greek myths we find imagery that often intimately merges and binds the human with the natural world [Fig. 1]. One key element, for example, is shape shifting, or metamorphosis, which “is the ability of an entity to physically transform into another being or form” (“Shapeshifting”).

Even though in Greek mythology this resource is widely used with an allegoric

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purpose (e.g., Daphne is transformed into a

laurel tree while escaping from Apollo), it still

indicates an intention to interconnect the

human with the organic, plus it resonates with

empirical processes that undergo

transformation in nature (e.g., pupal stage in

some insects).

For this literary realm, it is no wonder

that Romantics were influenced by mythology. Fig. 1. Pollaiuolo, Antonio. Apollo and Daphne. C. 1470. Oil on wood. The National Gallery, London. However, they incorporated a new factor to these themes, and it was the idea of awareness and criticism of their current context. According to Donald Worster in Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological

Ideas, this is what would later influence the field of green studies:

[T]he more militant resurgence of the pagan outlook toward nature

came in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with the

rise of Romanticism in . . . . Romanticism found

expression in certain common themes, and one of the most recurrent

was a fascination with biology and the study of the organic world.

Romantics found this field of science a modern approach to the old

pagan intuition that all nature is alive and pulsing with energy or spirit

. . . . And at the very core of this Romantic view of nature was what

later generations would come to call an ecological perspective. (81–

82)

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This historical approach outlined by

Donald Worster has also influenced many contemporary that have reconsidered the limits between the natural and the individual. Land artists like Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy, and Robert Smithson, are part of a group that moved away from the idea of landscape to enter the notion of land

(Malcolm 201), and they did this by breaking the boundaries of materials, Fig. 2. Long, Richard. A Circle in Alaska. 1977. Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper. Rooms, Tate, London. substrates and location. They moved away from the studio and worked directly in nature [Fig. 2]. Is it only through , however, that art breaks the frame? Certainly not, because moving away from the frame doesn’t depend on the formal alone. Instead, it is also about changing the way we perceive the surrounding; that is the land, but also ourselves immersed in it, which is a key factor in my research as an artist.

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III. Impermanence of the Artwork

At end of the previous section I briefly mentioned land artists that have challenged the idea of landscape in their art practices. However, there is another notion within their works that is equally important in the way they understand the environment, and that is impermanence (Åsdam 119). Until now I have delimited my research to Western discourse to address a specific relationship with the environment in culture, but in order to address the idea of ephemerality, I will start by mentioning the sand process behind Tibetan Buddhist mandalas

(Sanskrit ‘circle’), a visual representation and practice that has impermanence as its core characteristic [Fig. 3].

Heather Stoddard, author, professor and head of Tibetan studies at the

National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Institut National des

Langues et Civilisations Orientales) in Paris, states that “[a] number of scholars

have demonstrated that within

the Buddhist world, especially in

Vajraydna, the mandala is part

(the central part?) of an

interpenetrating series of

macro/microcosmic structures”

(Stoddard 169). That is, Fig. 3. Tibetan Buddhist monks working on sand mandala in Bud Werner Memorial Library. Digital image. Mandala on the Yampa. N.p., 15 Aug. 2010. mandalas focus on representing Web. 20 Apr. 2015. an integral conception of reality.

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The process of constructing a Tibetan Buddhist mandala involves an opening ceremony (chants, , and mantra recitation), drawing the outline of a graphic pattern in a flat surface, and then pouring the colored sand with metal funnels (chak-pur) into this drawn structure as a process of meditation

(“Sandpainting”). After its completion, the monks perform the last stage of this process, which consists in destroying the mandala as a metaphor for impermanence (Pali: anicca; Sanskrit: anitya) and the cycles of life (Smith 2). They terminate this process by collecting the sand in a vessel and pouring it into a body of water as a closing ceremony (“Sandpainting”).

For Tibetan Buddhists, the creation and destruction of the mandala also embodies what professor Kenneth Inada identified as the two aspects of emptiness

(Sunyata) within Buddhism:

The first aspect alerts our perceptions to be always open and fluid,

and to desist from attaching to any form or element. . . . Second and

more importantly, emptiness points at a positive context of our

experience. It underscores the possibility of total experience in any

given moment because there is now nothing attached to or persisted

in. (10)

If we extrapolate this beyond Buddhism, the definition given by Inada resonates with the notion of cyclical changing that I mentioned in the previous section, which was outlined by Collingwood in The Idea of Nature (13). In this sense, cyclical changing contemplates impermanence and emptiness, because it recognizes both the constant state of change and the cycles of birth and death given in nature.

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This conceptual understanding of impermanence has influenced the work of the land artists mentioned earlier, especially Andy Goldsworthy [Fig. 4], who said the following during an interview with Fiona Maddocks:

Nothing lasts. We all have to deal with loss. When I make something,

in a field or street, it may vanish but it's part of the history of those

places. . . . Working with change is to also work with the future. The

work doesn't necessarily predict what will happen but does embrace

change, whether it be growth or decay. (Goldsworthy)

Although the ephemerality might be more perceptible when working with natural and organic materials, Goldsworthy’s idea of impermanence isn’t that different from that of other artists who work in a more urban scenario, but who also believe in decay as part of the creative process.

This is the case of the street artist Swoon [Fig. 5], who has been working with large and highly Fig. 4. Goldsworthy, Andy. Red Cherry Leaf Patch. 1984. . N.p. detailed prints that she pastes in the public space.

On 2011, the art curator Pedro Alonzo referred to her work by saying that “Swoon’s preference for natural and recycled materials lends her work an ephemeral quality.

The power of her work is a result not only of its scale . . . but of the tension created between its complexity and impermanence” (Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston).

The impermanence indicated by Alonzo references her paper and wheat-paste

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technique that, unlike spray paint,

recognizes ageing, decay, and fragility as

part of the process.

Although Swoon and Goldsworthy’s

artworks are different in form and content,

they both recognize the ephemeral as an

essential quality. In this case, the

impermanence of the artwork, regardless of

Fig. 5. Swoon. Jaime Rojo Mural. where it is performed, becomes a way of Digital image. Women Street Artists. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. acknowledging reality as a continuously

changing cycle.

In order to truly communicate the message of their works, these artists also recognize the importance of documentation as part of the artistic process. This step is substantial because a project might not only be temporary, but also placed where there is not an easy access for public. Even when the works have decayed and disappeared, they continue to exist in that form of record.

Until a few decades ago, this type of documentation was normally exhibited in galleries or showcased in books and magazines where the artists were featured, but with the development Internet and the digital culture, ephemeral art has found a way to spread more widely than before. In digital media, the content is shared and multiplied in such a way that the documentation becomes more significant than the process of decay. That is the case of the artist Banksy, whose presence in digital media has proven to be successful even when his own identity remains unknown. If

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YouTube in less than two months.

In digital media it might seem like ephemeral works transform into something more permanent, however artworks face a different kind of

impermanence on the Internet,

which affects the message behind

them. Banksy criticized this in one of

the works created in Gaza where he

depicted a kitten playing with a ball

of metal materials that simulates Fig. 6. Banksy. Gaza Strip Graffiti. 2015. Digital image. Banksy. N.p., 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. yarn [Fig. 6]. In his website, the image was posted with the following note: “A local man came up and said 'Please - what does this mean?' I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website – but on the [I]nternet people only look at pictures of kittens” (“Banksy”). This ironic statement recognizes that, even if ephemeral interventions have a more permanent life in the digital world, other type of images and contents easily displaces them, which is a different way of decaying.

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IV. Overview and Analysis of Thesis Project

As I have indicated throughout this text, one of my interests as an artist has been the possibility of rethinking the boundaries that separate us from the environment. My thesis project, Spreader, therefore, engages elements of representation and narrative to explore a realm where those limits between the natural world and humans are blurred.

The work that I have created consists of two parts. The first one exists as a set of interventions in the public space where I overlap small-scale painted cutouts

with human-made structures

[Fig. 7]. These paper pieces

depict specific organic figures

like plants, animals, and human

body parts. Pasting them with

wheat paste in the public space

allows a dialog between the

represented imagery and the Fig. 7. Spreader. Gouache and pencil on paper, cut and wheat-pasted. 2015. existent surfaces, so that the visual result denotes an encounter between both worlds. Likewise, the public space generates an accessible and open encounter with people, and therefore the message of the work becomes more declarative. This is emphasized by the fact that, once these works are pasted outside without a name to be traced, they become collective.

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The second intervention exists in the gallery [Fig. 8], where I worked with the same technical approach, although for this part I developed a more immersive environment that Fig 8. Spreader. Paint and pencil on paper, cut and wheat-pasted. 2015. allows me to move away from the smallness of the paper cutouts installed in the public space. Through the layering of paper pieces on the open wall the work is not forced to follow a specific structure, which questions and challenges Malcolm Andrews’s idea of the ‘frame’.

Although the interventions differ in terms of their exhibition context, the two manifestations of the project have in common several characteristics that are essential in my artwork, such as the intertwining of the human with the natural world meant as a place of encounter.

Another crucial characteristic is the notion of impermanence, since I am detaching from the “object” of art, in order to focus more on the experience.

Although paper is an inexpensive material, painting and drawing on it involves a lot of work and dedication. In Spreader, however, I am letting go the idea of ownership and lastingness since the works only exist temporarily. In the gallery, the intervention ends once I remove it, because this process involves peeling off the paper and washing the wall. Likewise, in the public space the ownership ends when I place the painting cutouts and then move away. They exist only until someone else, a third party, removes them or they wear away naturally [Fig. 9].

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Fig. 9. Spreader; Documentation of the project, from installation to decay. 2015.

While the formal aspects of the cutouts embody a way of breaking the notion of the “frame” described by Malcolm Andrews, the process of detachment from the artworks is a way of representing impermanence. Rather than just implying decay, the ephemerality of these interventions celebrates the act of being present. It also works as a metaphor of the impermanence present in nature, seen in the cycles of birth and death, from which we are not outsiders.

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V. Conclusion

For my thesis project, Spreader, I have created a work that consists of two different parts, one that exists in the gallery and the other in the public space as a set of interventions. Although both have elements in common, such as the use of drawn and painted paper cutouts and impermanence as a core characteristic, I had different conclusions and experiences with each.

With the works installed around the city I have expanded my practice into the public space, which I haven’t tried before this project. This experience made me more aware of my surroundings, not just in terms of the possibilities I have as an artist, but also the limitations I face as a person: I have been living in the US for almost two years, and only during this process I noticed the amount of security cameras around the city. However, I continued with Spreader because I recognized the importance of leaving a mark in a shared and collective space. These interventions with wheat paste are a way or reconnecting with the city, often overwhelmed with advertising and corporate content, as well as delivering an accessible message for others.

In the process, the question of what is allowed naturally emerged. I was really careful in choosing locations that seemed truly collective and not individually owned. Also, I used wheat-paste (that is, starch and water), which is a material that doesn’t damage the surface where it is glued. However, there is still a major ignorance when it comes to differentiate it from other techniques that are more permanent, such as spray paint. Therefore, I was forced to accept that generalization and that meant being quick with the placement of the cutouts.

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Luckily, with this technique, all the intense and time-consuming labor of coloring, drawing and cutting is performed in the studio, so pasting become the last and fastest stage of the work.

Since wheat paste isn’t permanent, each intervention contains the possibility to be destroyed or removed by someone else. This element has fascinated me along this process because, even if I decide to make a statement by installing them, I am also accepting the removal as the statement of someone else.

Even though I work with representation of nature rather than nature itself, by overlapping the depicted organic figures with human-made structures I am exploring an ephemeral realm where the limits between the environment and humans are blurred. Although the fleeting “existence” of these public interventions

(sometimes less than an hour) might respond to an impulse of seeing the city as a neutral space, the fast destruction of the works also has become a metaphor of how we have and continue to break our connection with the natural world.

The creative process that I employed in the gallery intervention is the same, but this part of my project led me to a different experience. Firstly, I worked with a much larger scale that allowed me to take over the wall space and truly break the notion of the ‘frame’ defined by Malcolm Andrews. Secondly, being responsible of the destruction of my own work made more aware of the notion of cyclical changing that I mentioned in this thesis. By witnessing the entire process from start to end, I was able to relate more to the cycles of birth and death seen in nature.

Something that was present throughout the entire project was the notion of impermanence. By letting go the idea of ownership and lastingness, the act of

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Although I documented the process and the final interventions, in a digital world that is overly crammed with media content, documentation also becomes a fleeting material. Therefore, the acceptance of ephemerality in Spreader is a way of celebrating the act of being present and also realizing that impermanence is intrinsic to humanity and, moreover, to the entire environment.

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IV. Bibliography

Andrews, Malcolm. Landscape and Western Art. Oxford ; New York: Oxford

University Press, 1999. Print.

Åsdam, Knut. “Space, Place and the Gaze. Landscape and

Contemporary Visual Art.” Exploring the Boundaries of Landscape

Architecture. Ed. Simon Bell, Ingrid Sarlöv Herlin and Richard Stiles.

London: Routledge, 2012. 117-130. Print.

"Banksy." Banksy. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

Barnett, S.J. The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity.

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Print.

Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. 1st Anchor Books ed. New

York: Anchor Books, 1991. Print.

Collingwood, R. G. (Robin George). The Idea of Nature. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1945. Print.

Coupe, Laurence. The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism.

London: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Goldsworthy, Andy. Interview by Fiona Maddocks. “Andy Goldsworthy: 'Lying down

in Times Square in the rain is bound to attract attention'.” The Guardian. 17

Aug. 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2015

Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942. Print.

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. Influential Street Artist Swoon Transforms

ICA Lobby and Fineberg Art Wall with New, 40-ft, Site-specific Installation.

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 13 July 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

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Inada, Kenneth. “A Buddhist Response to the Nature of Human Rights.” Buddhism

and Human Rights. Ed. Damien V. Keown, Charles S. Prebish, Wayne R.

Husted. London: Curzon Press, 1998. 1-14. Print.

Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics. Trans. Louis Infield. New York: Harper & Row

Publishers, 1963. Print.

Löwy, Michael, and Robert Sayre. Romanticism Against the Tide of Modernity.

Trans. Catherine Porter. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. Print.

Massanari, Ronald L. “A Problematic in Environmental Ethics: Western and

Eastern Styles”. Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 18. 1998: 37-61. JSTOR.

Web. March 9, 2015.

Morton, Timothy. "Are You a Romantic?" Interview by Jeff Carreira. Web log post.

Evolutionary Collective Conversations. Evolutionary Collective, 10 Dec.

2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.

Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. Massachusetts: Harvard University

Press, 2010. Print.

“Sandpainting.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 16

Jan 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

Schama, Simon. Landscape and Memory. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1995. Print.

“Shapeshifting.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24

Feb 2015. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.

Smith, Nick L. and Paul R. Brandon. Fundamental Issues in Evaluation. New York:

The Guilford Press, 2007. Print.

Stoddard, Heather. “Dynamic Structures in Buddhist Maṇḍalas: Apradakṣina and

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Mystic Heat in the Mother Tantra Section of the Anuttarayoga Tantras.”

Artibus Asiae Publishers. Vol. 58, No. 3/4 (1999): 169-213. JSTOR. Web. 19

March 2015.

Worster, Donald. Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd ed.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Print.

Zwerdling, Alex. “The Mythographers and the Romantic Revival of Greek Myth.”

PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association Vol. 79 (Sept.

1964): 447-56. JSTOR. Web. March 6, 2015.

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Work Sample Identification List

1. Spreader / Mpls, I Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 20 inches (h) x 15 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

2. Spreader / Mpls, I Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 20 inches (h) x 15 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

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3. Spreader / Mpls, II Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 30 inches (h) x 30 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

4. Spreader / Mpls, III Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 7,5 inches (h) x 8,5 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

5. Spreader / Mpls, III Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted.

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2015 7,5 inches (h) x 8,5 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

6. Spreader / Mpls, IV Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 22 inches (h) x 10 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

7. Spreader / Mpls, V Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 17,5 inches (h) x 13 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

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8. Spreader / Mpls, VI Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 8 inches (h) x 6,5 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

9. Spreader / Mpls, VII Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 18 inches (h) x 12 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

10. Spreader / Mpls, VII 2015

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This image documents the decay of Spreader / Mpls VII, which is part of the interventions I made in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human-made sites.

11. Spreader / Mpls, VII 2015 This image documents the decay of Spreader / Mpls VII, which is part of the interventions I made in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human-made sites.

12. Spreader / Mpls, VIII 2015 This image documents the installation process of Spreader / Mpls VIII, which is part of the interventions I made in the public space, where I overlapped small- scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human-made sites.

13. Spreader / Mpls, VIII

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Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 24,3 inches (h) x 17 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

14. Spreader / Mpls, IX Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 25 inches (h) x 15 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

15. Spreader / Mpls, IX Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 25 inches (h) x 15 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

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16. Spreader / Mpls, IX Detail Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 25 inches (h) x 15 inches (w) This work is part of a series of interventions in the public space, where I overlapped small-scale cutouts (previously painted and drawn) with human- made sites.

17. Spreader Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 97 inches (h) x 180 inches (w) Mural intervention created with paper cutouts (previously painted and drawn) in Public Functionary (gallery).

18. Spreader Detail Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted.

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2015 97 inches (h) x 180 inches (w) Mural intervention created with paper cutouts (previously painted and drawn) in Public Functionary (gallery).

19. Spreader Detail Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 97 inches (h) x 180 inches (w) Mural intervention created with paper cutouts (previously painted and drawn) in Public Functionary (gallery).

20. Spreader Detail Paint and pencil on paper, cut and pasted. 2015 97 inches (h) x 180 inches (w) Mural intervention created with paper cutouts (previously painted and drawn) in Public Functionary (gallery).