I used to stare at old maps for hours. My grandmother gave me dozens from old National Geographics.

 

Patterns repeated like fractals: from as large as the universe down to the smallest viewable matter, I saw maps in leaves and petals that I could trace and follow from the stems to the tips.  I held them up to the sun and made these "maps" glow.

 

I saw a bird that had perished, lying on the grass.  Its wings were collapsed but when expanded, the wings are translucent.

 

I began looking through grocery stores, and fields, and yards, and gardens for other translucent things.

 

I was walking through the Pompidou, looking at abstractions - like a lens zooming in and out.  

 

These pieces came together in my mind.

 

Like alchemy, I place these things on a controlled light surface and this allows me to reimagine organic materials and create new life from death.