What is an accumulation of effort, whether it’s natural or human in origin?

What if it’s not our labor that’s of value, and not our possessions? What might we become if we allowed our lived experiences and the stories of how they weave our lives together to grow in importance? What might we create if we share this were our strong currency? What if we assigned great value to the simplicity of being alive together, here and now?

A cookie jar, mouth open in a scream or waiting for a treat, is propped among a serving dish of bonsai, doorways, and fallen trees that stand in the way of an egress to the outdoors, emphasized by an arch. All is surrounded by artifacts of the endless and exacting work of rugmaking, its fruits resting in piles on the floor, in the light of suns, bright, falling, or stylized.

A portion of a photograph by Daniel Ramirez https://www.flickr.com/photos/21442511@N08/6202251368 under a Creative Commons 2.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ as well as a portion of a photograph by Eric Kilby (broken link) under a CC license were sources, adapted and modified, for the fallen trees in the image.

A Presentation, oil on glue/chalk gesso on plywood, 30” x 40”, 2010-2023