ILLUMINATIONS
October 2 - November 8, 2026
Reception: Friday, Oct 2, 7-9:30pm
Botanical imaginings, exploring the beauty of nature's hidden details.
The four artists engaged in this exhibition have been on their own personal journeys through nature for their entire artistic careers. They plan a representation, interpretation, and imagination of the symbiotic and sentient life of nature, both above and below the ground.
The exhibit represents four different media:
Glass: Teresa Seaton
Textiles: Lorraine Roy
Paint: Michele Van Maurik
Clay Assemblage: Nikola Wojewoda
The artworks below are my contributions to the exhibition. All are available to purchase at Carnegie Gallery until the end of the exhibit.
20” Round fabric wall hanging
Sugar maples rely heavily on their relationship with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, trading sugars produced from leaves for better access to water and nutrients at the root level. The strands enter the root cells and open out like small trees, thus giving them their name.
Acer saccharum
20” Round fabric wall hanging
These inch high bell shaped mushrooms can be spotted in leaves, roots and debris on the forest floor in the fall. This species is edible although perhaps only on a smaller plate.
Hygrocybe coccinea
20” Round fabric wall hanging
At not more that ¼” in size, sugar maple flowers appear in early spring in bright clusters at maple twig tips. The male flower produces pollen, spreading its golden dust with the breeze. The pollen is eagerly sought after by emerging pollinators and many other insects and organisms.
Acer saccharum
20” Round fabric wall hanging
This bright green moss grows on roots, rocks, trunks and soil. A colony can become completely dormant during dry spells, even for many years, to resurrect within minutes and photosynthesize within two hours!
Syntrichia ruralis
20” Round fabric wall hanging
These orange disc-shaped cups, only 3 mm across, are the fruiting bodies of these handsome lichens. They provide home and shelter to a host of microorganisms on hardwood tree trunks in shady forests.
Rusavskia elegans
20” Round fabric wall hanging
The glorious patterns of circles and cells within circular cross sections are endlessly mesmerizing.
Acer saccharum
20” Round fabric wall hanging
Less than ¼” in size, this tiny stingless wasp lays her egg on an oak leaf which begins a hormonal hurricane within the cells. The resulting gall becomes a safe home for the larva. She eventually emerges fully formed through a small opening, leaving the hard button-like gall behind. Oak galls were originally processed to make ink.
Cynipidae spp
20” Round fabric wall hanging
Fungal strands help connect trees beneath the surface, allowing them to share messages and resources.
Glomus spp
20” Round fabric wall hanging
This ½” long delicate creature feeds on pollen and plant materials as an adult, but as a nymph, watch out! She is a deadly hunter of aphids and other small plant eating pests.
Chrysoperla carnea
49x23” Quilted wall hanging
The forest holds a multitude of small and hidden secrets within her generous mantle, from the furthest leaf in the canopy, through the supple trunk, to the tips of the finest rootlets.