Selected Watercolors / Drawings 2018

Coal Drawings
​During the Carboniferous Period (roughly 300 million years ago) northeastern Illinois was tropical, equatorial, and covered in a vast swamp forest bounded by a brackish bay to the south. Periodic flooding events buried the accumulated plant material which, over time – by heat, pressure, and biological processes – turned to coal. In the 19th century, a major industry developed around the extraction of coal, a resource that has been used for energy to this day, increasing worldwide every year. In the mining process, the landscape is ravaged and the atmospheric effects from coal burning have now reached to a level of global emergency. This series of drawings uses coal, the residue of its burning, and calcium carbonate derived from mollusk shells in a poetic attempt to reference and resurrect the life forms critical to our ecology that are overlooked when we utilize naturally stored energy, be it measured in food calories or BTUs.
                                  Coal Drawing 1           
​      Ground coal and freshwater mussel shells in gum arabic,
           zinc white, on soot-stained paper, 21.5 x 15.25 in. 
                                 Coal Drawing 2           
​       Ground coal, rust, and freshwater mussel shells in gum
      arabic, zinc white, on soot-stained paper, 21.5 x 15.25 in.
                                                                                   Coal Drawing 3           
​                                                    Ground coal and freshwater mussel shells in gum arabic,
                                                               zinc white, on soot-stained paper, 21.5 x 15.25 in.