I am a native Oregonian, lover of lichens and oyster mushrooms. I am drawn to things that ripple, drip, plop, hang, or multiply, but always want to fit them into a nice, neat little box or add them to a calendar. Charts and to-do lists of blobs! Pixelated plops! These are the ideas that keep me up at night.

My original idea for the chaboo was to unite Ken's Chinese bamboo with some natural Oregon materials -- forest bits, pinecones, twigs, pineneedles. But when a muddy/snowy walk through Forest Park yielded not one clean specimen, I scoured a local nursery for inspiration. The result: tillandsias and tree fungus, with two terrariums to boot! The tillandsias, or "air plants," are very easy to care for and certainly fun to look at. Placement decisions were made in light of maintaining some functionality and flexibility in the final piece.

The painting was a stream-of-fungally-consciousness, letting my hand loose on the chaboo while keeping my eyes fixed on the stringing, spiking, roundy, curvy plants. Utlimately, I wanted the living (or once-living) objects to feel nested into the chaboo.