Welcome.
I’m Mia, a multidisciplinary artist interested in my relationship with the environment. I am fond of working with natural materials and found objects- working based on my “place”, my surroundings. The idea that immersion is so much more than a room of color; yet, maybe its more simplistic. Walking barefoot to feel grass between my toes.
Waiting for the sun to move between the trees.
Collecting objects that can lend themselves to a memory, moment, or sensation.
Setting aside ‘reality’ to let the ground energize my body.
Utilizing pure materials to consider how material products have informed my work.
I’m Mia, a multidisciplinary artist interested in my relationship with the environment. I am fond of working with natural materials and found objects- working based on my “place”, my surroundings. The idea that immersion is so much more than a room of color; yet, maybe its more simplistic. Walking barefoot to feel grass between my toes.
Waiting for the sun to move between the trees.
Collecting objects that can lend themselves to a memory, moment, or sensation.
Setting aside ‘reality’ to let the ground energize my body.
Utilizing pure materials to consider how material products have informed my work.
The summer of 2023 guided me to Spain. I arrived in Madrid, then spent 14 hours on a bus. At hour 13, I finally saw the ocean, cacti, the Pulpi market, and Montemero. While staying at the Montemero Art Residency, I focused on learning an unfamiliar landscape through observation. I found an abundance of woven hats, rugs, baskets on the property... I read about Andalusia’s rich history of weaving - then, I taught myself how to weave with esparto. I meticulously gathered esparto, only so much from each plant. I listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer and abided by her philosophy of an honorable harvest. I created a Birth Pod to signify a transitional period of my life, allowing myself to be reborn in the desert.
In August I flew to Rome, Italy and settled into an apartment packed away in the tourist-poluted city. I yearned for the safety of walking around Ithaca, NY at any hour of the day and fantasized about cowboys, bagels, gas stations, and snow. I burned my skin in the Mediterranean sun, sat on the train until I saw horses, and improved my dance moves. I traveled to Venice, Florence, Naples, Ireland, and Germany. I photographed everything like it was target practice. I captured moments of new places that felt like ones I had known before. I saw New England in the water, the red rocks of the Colorado, fields and tractors as if I was in Nebraska, and cows that reminded me of my “cow town”, Dighton. I created a series of artist’s books defining the identities of places I disocvered and redefining the places that built my identity.
I spent a week of July in Aurora NY, a small village along Cayuga Lake. I worked with Tom Balbo at Wells College’s Summer Book Arts Intensive. My week began with small-scale, traditional western papermaking and as the week progressed, I began to feel deeply connected to Aurora. I started producing larger sheets of paper and created prints of my surroundings- the picnic table I ate lunch at, the tree that stood 5 feet from my studio space, ‘Morgan Hall’. These prints consisted of molding paper on the material, allowing for it to dry, then removing the paper, now printed by its surroundings. I enjoyed mid-day swims off the dock and used algea and seaweed as inclusions in my paper. On the last day, I spotted a four leaf clover and pressed it between a sheet of abaca and another of flax.
2022 started at Mulholland Wildflower Preserve- where I lay in this video. Months of investigation developed into a series of drawings, notes, vidoes, and images. I dedicated many of my days to a subscribed section of Six Mile Creek, a place I was drawn to far before the investigation began. I was inspired by Elizabeth Mulholland’s attraction to the same environment. I created fabric cyanotypes in memory of her embroidered wildflowers and gathered fabric scraps to make a crazy quilt of my own. I painted with the snow and the creek water- the source of my drinking water. I learned the local’s schedules, meditated, and memorized the paths, sometimes adventuring a little farther than I was comfortable.