In the East Rosebud Valley of Montana stands a rock house and red barn built in 1920 by Swiss immigrants John and Rosina Branger. They gathered river rock and mountain pines to create their homestead, running the T-O Bar cattle ranch and later welcoming city slickers as a Summer dude ranch.
In 2017, I happened upon this historic remnant and in the fall of 2024 committed to becoming its’ steward and moving to the valley full-time to commune with the land, ghosts and the seventeen residents of Roscoe.
The next installation will be within and around the stone house while the barn becomes a residency for souls seeking rest. ARTPROJECT2025 emerges from this gift of exceptionally beautiful solitude—a practice of moving through time and space in what feels like another dimension.
Through your support of EDITIONs recently launched on my website, The Rosebud Homestead will become an experiential installation that welcomes you to truly stay a while. This encounter will serve as a balm and rattle to your soul. If you were able to visit the last installation in my home in San Francisco, you know what I mean.
Do you know what it is like to see a guest read the upside down words from a painting - I have been waiting for you for lifetimes - look at their love and buy the work? I do. That is some romantic artlove making 🤍 thank you thank you thank you 🌊 - Iris
Looking back at this work is like reading an old prescription. If the cure for pain is in the pain, the words • Stay with Me • were my teachers way of saying so. M kept repeating and I kept writing this mantra. And so, I learned to stay. I turned my home into an apothecary, an open diary and a sanctuary. I am revisiting this work because now is the ending to what is beginning to evolve out of two years since. I do not want to forget the opening & closing of each cycle. It is my nature as a creative human. I treasure the Stay with Me circle. This is an honoring of those who supported the project; the notes, the emotional and financial support and the beginnings of truly sacred friendships. All of it is what gets me fired up to take this seedling in Rosebud to the next level. ⭕️
more art which left the stay with me installation & moved into visitors’ of the exhibit own home. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s kinda the greatest feeling as an artist having met you personally & seen you connect with the work in real time.
Stay with Me was an installation created over the course of two years and completed on the eve of covid. I decided to open my home in San Francisco regardless which was a courageous yet slightly insane and overwhelmingly rewarding decision. I am now embarking on a new project in Montana which has been in my heart for the last two years. Much of what I hope to create is inspired by you, those I listened to and witnessed visiting Stay with Me. So much of what moves me to work is the ache of loneliness into a remembering of what makes us feel whole. I also need to acknowledge once again this past project and share the over twenty two pieces I sold as an artist representing my own work. This is gratefully becoming a respectable norm. Artists do not need a galleries’ validation to become successful financially or have the work appreciate in value for the collector. Of course I welcome the support from my dream spaces and the curatorial minds I admire. Until then, I will continue to hustle, get back on the saddle and do what I love the most; make experiential installation art. The Rosebud Homestead is my heart breakingly beautiful backdrop. It’s time to open the portal and dive in. It kinda seems like the perfect time to switch the channel and listen to the wind no?
On August first I left my friend Caroline’s bookshop @riverartsandbooks in our bustling town of seventeen to head home. As I walked up the front stairs, a black bear was to my left about to enter wide open doors to the living room which must have blown open in the wind. We looked at each other and she turned away. She stayed in the yard while I closed the doors and then wandered into the apple trees and sat on the fence while I watched in awe and my pounding heart calmed. It was impossible not to see the synchronicity in timing and to ask what this encounter meant as I was selling the property. I sat on my porch and stared at the big and little dipper also called great bear and little bear. I walked around this beautiful historic home in this quiet and fairly untouched valley and decided to take a large leap of faith and a big dip. I am not ready to let go of the place. I am moving in. As my friend James gently suggested, ‘after putting your heart and soul into remodeling the homestead for the last two years with every intention to share with others, why not stay to now receive the gift?’ I stared up at the large metal circle hanging above a roaring fire made by the blacksmith in this properties’ ranch days and knew he was right. I left Rosebud on a full moon twenty days later to pack up my things in Ojai. What a full circle month it has been.
Vignettes of an apartment turned art installation I once lived within. Looking back at all of the work last night in the bathtub kinda blew me away. This entire project was cathartic. However, witnessing the work translate in so many ways for visitors was the greatest gift. Staying with myself and trying to truly listen to this body (Softly & Strongly) will always be my great edge.
A final altar piece for Heather’s restaurant was a last minute addition I created as a gift. We came to this art together and working in a collaborative and commissioned based way was a massive departure for me. It would not have been possible were I not completely compelled by Heather’s Spirit. Were I to embroider more words, they would define the Gaelic word Hiraeth; A spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was. Nostalgia for ancient places to which we cannot return. It is the echo of the lost places of our Soul’s past and our grief for them. It is in the wind and the rocks and the waves. It is nowhere and it is everywhere. 🕸️
I was struck by a gorgeous book cover by Annie Swan written in 1895 entitled, Fettered yet Free; A study in Heredity. I see symbolisms of romantic relationships within these shapes and objects. The gold and silver mirrors speak to how we tell our story and it’s layered perspective which is based entirely on what we see within our reflection. This sculpture is within Butcher’s Daughter as a part of the larger installation. It felt fitting. 🐍
From two self-portraits printed on cotton, large scale wooden embroidery hoops, patterns for the curtains designed from clips within the portraits, sewn snake with rock head in gold leaf, dried pomegranates and horse hair, two large scale works were created in my studio in Ojai and shipped to Butcher’s Daughter in NYC. I am indebted to my friends and collaborators Greg, who graciously created the beautiful bent wooden hoops and Delicious Diane a master seamstress who pulled off the impossible with the short time we had to create these works. Each piece now mirror one another within the alcove of Butcher’s Daughter’s latest space in the Bowery.
Lilith, 2023. Stone pine tree bark, vintage silk & lace nightgown, ink prints on linen. Commission for the fierce yet gentle, trusting, generous and visionary founder of @thebutchersdaughter_official 🤍Heather and I spent time downloading our most honest and raw Selves and thus, I was able to create five works in less than two months for her latest space in NYC. I hoped to create both a site specific installation and an impression of the woman behind Butcher’s Daughter. Lilith, the sister of Eve in the shape of the Ouroboros is a story of a woman inspired by Egyptian mythology and Pagan folklore while the Ouroboros is one of the oldest and most sacred Symbols exemplifying our shedding, rebirth and evolution as beings within this multidimensional time and space. If and when you are in lower Manhattan, please visit Butcher’s Daughter and see Lilith in the flesh.
