Shifting relationships of material, place, and process or Containing and containment in the landscape or Tath and midden: Shifting symbiosis of material and place

Tactile memory of place, gathered through sensory-based experience of the body, creates an interior landscape that is formed from but is not a duplicate of the exterior landscape. Derivative, not clone. In this thesis I approach this concept from two directions: how the landscape contained within the body interacts with the landscape in which the body is contained, and how to give physical presence to a place that has been bent and held in the lens of memory. My thesis also explores the complex and shifting relationships between material, place, and process. These are the variables that propel my artistic practice, and I examine what each of these variables contributes to the roil of work both in the studio and out in the landscape. Through the appraisal and mapping of local bricolage and gleaning possibilities, the residue of source and origin that a raw material holds and what trace of this is retained in the final work is investigated. Researching the influences of material on process, and recording how what comes to hand affects method, culminates in an illumination of the way intuitive practice expands through the inclusion of untried and abundant material. Local, esoteric, and relevant language is gathered and a specific taxonomy is developed to articulate the concepts of my work