Henry Miller Library

This 2010 project at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur was in partnership with the non-profit Fine Arts Base. Materials for the installation were sourced from the Monterey Regional Waste Management District’s Last Chance Mercantile, SCRAP (Scrounger’s Center for Reusable ArtParts) in San Francisco, and from friends’ discarded material.

I installed a fantastic landscape of floating islands and pollen spores in the redwood trees at the front of the Henry Miller Library.
Rising temperatures an CO2 levels cause plants to become larger and potentially more hazardous to humans. There are two highly allergenic plant pollens represented that are occurring in the Big Sur area: ragweed and sagebrush. The pollen forms derived from scanning electron micro-imaging. I like the idea of making visible these forms that we couldn’t ordinarily see, sort of an unknown butterfly effect of our consumption.
The islands are a point of charm and unease for me. In a way they are playful, but the island has also represented symbolic place for change and a longing for a tabula rasa from Robinson Crusoe to LOST. There is also the sense that the islands could have been blown apart.