“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” - Mahatma Ghandi

Mirror Reflection was created as part of the national environmental art movement Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss. It was originally created for the Holter Museum in Helena, MT where it was exhibited August 26 - October 10, 2021

This installation consists of a large 7’ x 15’ wood assemblage painting, and hanging “branches” from industrial brackets meant to hint at power lines and industry. Everything was made from refurbished materials, most coming out of a single garbage pile.

 The initial inspiration for “Mirror Reflection” came when I stumbled upon Migrations in Motion, a 2016 research study conducted by the University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy. It is a beautiful digital map using flow models from electronic circuit theory, plotting the movement routes of 2,903 vertebrates in the Western hemisphere. And sadly, the outcome of this research visually illustrated to researchers that only 41 percent of the natural land area in the United States still retains enough connectivity to actually facilitate these animals' annual treks across the continents.

On looking at these maps what struck me first was its beauty. Watching the colored lines flow across the map seemed immediately familiar and very close to home. These pathways looked eerily similar to the inner circulatory system of a body. This body, this earth, functions as a single unit, each continent placed in a particular junction, serving a particular purpose to the planet as a whole. The veins travel over and between, carrying life-giving oxygen to each organ/continent, balancing the synapse perfectly, transmitting information to and from each other in order to work together. The water, the blood, supporting everything at once, teeming with life.

 But what happens when even one vein/species is uprooted or wiped out? Do veins just magically grow back? Instead of using the routes which they have used for thousands of years, they are now forced to circumnavigate and attempt to find new routes around the obstacles which have been instigated by human presence and activities. By doing so, this obviously puts each and every species at risk, as all things in nature works in a delicate balance with one another, moving in congruence and working together, supporting one another and the planet and ourselves with every step and misstep.

Instead of focusing on each way in which we have interrupted these pathways, I chose to spotlight the huge issue of deforestation. The loss of a home for species is like a piece of the system being wiped out, annihilated as if it was never there, like a cancer infecting the body. I painstakingly mapped out all of the areas where forests are now lost, or are nearly lost. Each vein that once flowed, now missing a critical link.

 We love to refer to the Earth as “Mother” nature, and in my mind I’ve always had a negative reaction to that reference. True, we do tend to treat the earth as a mother: rely on it, reap food and resources incessantly, verbally give great reverence to her yet not treat her with respect, actively fighting against her when she doesn’t do what we want... But that’s the problem, I don’t think of the Earth as a mother, but rather as something we should be mothering and caring for. Something which will only thrive if we act as proper caretakers, or “parents”, if you will. The Earth, and all its inhabitants, are our responsibility, our sense of purpose. It should be our life goal not to abuse and suck it dry, but to nourish and sustain its life, and in doing that, sustain our life.

In creating this installation, I am attempting to illustrate all this through metaphor, bringing it closer to home by visualizing the human body. The hanging elements are an extension to further illustrate the damages of deforestation and its repercussions: These “branches”, along with the wood in the painting, are constructed entirely from recycled, repurposed materials, particularly the wooden “leaves”. All of the wood was found in a trash pile, wood harvested then discarded because the project was left unfulfilled. This “trash” wood was left from one family, one project. Now expand that to the waste seen from every individual. No matter how we may personally feel about climate change or deforestation, we are all guilty of being equally wasteful. Even while we look at another’s trash and pass judgement, we can see ourselves reflected in the shiny, cheap chrome of industry.

Truly, it all boils down to the fact that humans, for all of our good qualities, tend to always drift towards selfishness and pleasing ourselves in the moment. It isn’t only seen in how we treat the earth, or trees, or even animals, but also in how we treat each other.