Paper handmade by the artist (flax, hemp, soot, kozo, gampi, mitsumata, willow), inkjet prints
When I came to Iowa in 2020, I drove around the landscape, trying to get to know my new home. I had been living in Japan for the better part of a decade, creating low relief handmade paper works reminiscent of Zen rock gardens. Immediately, when viewing the till and plow lines of Iowa’s industrial agriculture, I saw the lines as a strange, brutal analogy to the carefully raked ripple lines of rock gardens. I was also intrigued by structures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie Style architecture — e.g., the home at Cedar Rock State Park, IA — which inspired the tiers and overhanging elements of this installation.
In 2021, I met the good people at Land Alliance Folk School in Oxford, Iowa. They showed me around their farm and we talked about the gradual restoration of Iowa’s prairie lands. They also gave me access to local mulberry and willow. With all of these pieces coming into place, I put together this installation in one of the folk school’s renovated barns the following year.
This installation has much to do with personal transition, and finding similarities in terrain between two disparate locations. This was made during a time of longing and wanting to belong — feelings that continue to this day.
From the Oxford English Dictionary: "Coil" has an unusual etymological history. It was coined repeatedly; at various times people have used it as a verb to mean "to cull", "to thrash", "to lie in rings or spirals", "to turn", "to mound hay" and "to stir". As a noun it has meant "a selection", "a spiral", "the breech of a gun", "a mound of hay", "a pen for hens", and "noisy disturbance, fuss, ado”.
