Guide Lines, 2025.

Overlaid tactile photos repeat parallel sidewalk safety guide lines, with big red poppies bursting through. Touch the lines to “read” the pavement. I’ve covered a translucent panel with touchable, textured collage on one side, with “hidden” and non-tactile elements only visible with light showing through or by flipping the panel.

Tactile “swell” and copy paper collage, corrugated plastic panel, adhesive. 20” x 30" x 0.16”
”Guide Lines” is part of the “Utility & Beauty” series, 2025.

What grows in sidewalk cracks creates navigation obstacles as well as emergent beauty and tiny ecosystems. Humans use concrete as canvas, leaving our marks carved and painted. I like tangible contrasts between organic bodies and manufactured surfaces. I photograph the utility and beauty I find on the ground. I print my photos with a capsule “swell” printer, applying heat to create raised lines. “Swell printing” is a tactile printing process, primarily used for instructional materials for people who are blind and partially sighted. I apply this disability access tool artistically, with attention to what I want to examine more closely.