Mark your calendars to attend Paradise Lost, a solo show featuring my work! My latest work Do Not Leave Food Unattended (shown above) and more will be on view! Exhibition dates - July 14-August 1, 2021 Hours - 1-5pm, Wednesdays – Sundays Artist reception - 6-8pm, Friday, July 16th Location - Art Lab Fort Collins 239 Linden St Fort Collins, CO 80524 To preview the show, click Paradise Lost. Image credit: Do Not Leave Food Unattended, 2021 | Wool, wire, tree stump and Cheetos |

The National Park Service’s arrowhead emblem inspired the shape of my I Leave No Trace patch, which features Delicate Arch. I like how the letters got a little lost in the design. They are not leaving much of a trace. . . What tips do you have for leaving no trace? I look forward to reading your comments below! Image credit: Merit Badge: I Leave No Trace, 2020 | Embroidery floss on fabric #fiberart #embroidery #patch #meritbadge #fortcollins #coloradoartist #contemporaryart #

The warmer weather has me longing for spring and thinking of wildflowers! Image credit: Merit Badge:: I Do Not Pick Wildflowers, 2020 | Embroidery floss on fabric #contemporaryart #fortcollins #coloradoartist #embroidery #meritbadge #patch #fiberart #recreation #stewardship #recreateresponsibly #leavenotrace

The merit badge I Do Not Feed Wildlife was inspired by a chipmunk we came across while hiking in Yosemite. The chipmunks had been fed so much that they were not afraid of people at all. In fact, they were aggressive. They would run up to your pack in search of food the second you set it down. Image credit: Merit Badge: I Do Not Feed Wildlife, 2020 | Embroidery floss on fabric #artandecology #recreation #stewardship #meritbadge #embroidery #fiberart #patch #contemporaryart #fo

In today’s world of video games, SMART phones, television, computers, and social media, it is easy to lose touch with nature (Anderson and Guyas, 2012). As a result, many people do not realize how their lives, actions and choices are impacting the environment. Or if they do know, they do not seem to care, at least not enough to make changes in their lifestyles to reduce their carbon footprints. Fortunately, though, this is not true for everyone. Artists, scientists, educators

To correspond with the demerit badge Tree Carving, I created the wall hanging Vandalism in National Parks. This map shows the number of vandalism incidents from 2013 to 2015 in Western national parks. I used a sewing machine on the state and country borders and sewed the mountains and rivers by hand. I was thinking about how borders are defined by governments, the machine, whereas mountains and rivers are natural features. By sewing the mountains and rivers by hand, I made th

My final Demerit Badge is Tree Carving. After coming across several vandalized trees in Rocky National Park, it seemed fitting to make a patch of a tree split down the middle by a broken heart. The P stands for people and the E earth to show how people have broken their relationship with the earth. This photo was taken in Rocky Mountain National Park on a hike to Gem Lake. Image credit: Demerit Badge: Off Trail, 2019 | Embroidery floss on fabric | Approximate 3x3 inches #arta

Inspired by my demerit badge Noise Pollution, I created a sound map from sounds I recorded over several weeks of research. As Gude (2004) proposed, I am “seeing [my] own artmaking, not as exercises, but as research that produces new visual and conceptual insights” (p. 8). In our day-to-day lives, we are constantly bombarded by sounds and noises, most of which we block out as we go about our busy days. By incorporating a QR code that viewers can scan to listen to a playlist of

This bright yellow diamond patch resembles a road sign with an infographic of a hiker. Considering the loss of silence and how we cannot escape the sounds of civilization even in the wilderness, I created a hiker stressed out by sound pollution. Image Credit: Demerit Badge: Noise pollution | 2019 | Embroidery floss on fabric #demeritbadge #fortcollins #coloradoartist #contemporaryart #fiberart #embroidery #recreateresponsibly #recreation #stewardship #soundpollution

Yosemite Valley corresponds with my demerit badge Traffic Jam. Inspired by the passionate wilderness advocate Edward Abbey who suggested in his book Desert Solitaire that national parks should not have roads, I created a weaving showing how roads cut through the natural landscape. I started by drawing a topographical map of Yosemite Valley. Over the years, my husband and I have accumulated many maps. I love their topographical lines and they have shown up in my work time and

My demerit badge Traffic Jam features a scene of bumper to bumper traffic in Yosemite Valley. While living in California, we would visit Yosemite National Park, my favorite national park. Going in the valley would feel like we were going to an amusement park. What is your favorite national park? Image Credit: Demerit Badge: Traffic Jam, 2019 | Embroidery floss on fabric #artandecology #fortcollins #coloradoartist #contemporaryart #nationalpark #yosemitenationalpark #embroider

I integrate art with geography. Mimicking cartographers, I create maps to correspond with each demerit badge. To illustrate how going off trail causes erosion, I painted a topographical map of Devil's Backbone, the park's marked trails, and my imagined human created off shoots from those trails. I chose burlap as the structure material because it is similar to erosion control blankets that are used to prevent erosion on hillsides. I chose a neutral color for the topographical

“Industrial Tourism is a threat to national parks.” [1] The first patch I made was Off Trail. The Demerit Badge captures a hiking boot in mid-air about to crush a precious flower. On my hikes, I have noticed many cutoffs where people have clearly left the trail and scarred the land. This damages ecosystems and sometimes destroys rare plants and flowers. Patches are a great influence on my art. My husband and I collect patches on our visits to state and national parks. This is

Mary Yaeger’s female merit badges helped me find the new direction I wanted to go in with my work. I am interested in how Yeager reframed the traditional boy scout merit badges through a feminist lens. Her merit badges depict female “rites of passage” and the manipulations females undergo in an effort to achieve an idealized beauty. Her work led me to create my own spin off of the national park patches and to create patches that show the negative effects of overcrowding of ou

As part of my current series Paradise Lost, I create merit and demerit badges that reframe and modernize the traditional "Leave No Trace" ideals. Seeing a smoke-filled sky today made me think of my meticulously hand-embroidered patch I Do Not Cause Wildfires. Please visit https://lnt.org/why/7-principles/minimize-campfire-impacts/ to learn how and when you can safely enjoy a campfire. What other socially responsible actions do you take to avoid accidentally starting a wildfir

Take a sneak peek behind the scenes to my home studio! This is where my art lives when it’s not decorating my home, exhibiting in a gallery, or being shipped to a new owner. Right now this cozy room is home to my latest series: Paradise Lost. Spanning a breadth of mediums including paintings, wall hangings, installation, and embroidery, my work invites viewers to analyze their relationships with nature. Please comment and share about a time when you noticed human encroachment