Jody Plant

Artist Statement

My work is about exploration, a kind of psychic unearthing. The intuitive practice of isolating, combining the detritus and artifacts of a place and memory, reveals to me the sublime in the ordinary. I assemble pieces of the natural and forgotten worlds. Some pieces are clues or talismans, others are portals. I'm interested in these "souvenirs," things dismantled or unearthed, because they have undergone a vital, elemental transformation. My collaborator and subject, my muse and nemesis, is time. One way to honor this discovery is to assemble a mixed-media collage that marks its passing. When assembling these found objects, ephemera, old photographs, and elements collected from the natural world, words become my principal tools. A forgotten story, message, or textbook could give rise to worlds. Random alphabet letters and words guide the fragments and graft impressions. Words become the tools with which I sift through the layers of the ordinary to where mystery, magic and the sacred lie.

Jody Plant