alej(a)rte

1,024 names for... - 2026

ink on cotton paper, earrings, book ring

demo prints - 2026

ran a quick collagraph printmaking workshop for t(w)eens recently at the library, these were the "blocks" & prints i made to demo, foam glued to paper, printed in water based inks, hard to beat as printmaking methods go in terms of cost & safety for children!

dinosaur footprints because that's the summer reading theme this year, school of lil fish to use up all the footprint scraps & bc they bring me joy

anillo 1.0 - 2026

insurance - 2026

copper, silver solder, glass beads

had a necklace of mainly clear seed beads & 3 of these mal de ojo beads on string which i never wore so my car wore it, this way i still won't be wearing it but my car will be that much more powerful (& look that much cooler) as it protects us both, still to decide what to do with the 3rd hand & eye that didn't ultimately suit this piece...

"installation view" amid all the butterflies (not made by me):

copper ring - 2026

copper, silver solder, fire opal matrix

my first ring! fun & impractical & slapdash &

cottonwood collector - 2026

copper, brass tubing, silver solder

mourning cloak: tanning hide (cover) - 2026

drawing a mourning cloak from memory - 2026

mulberry paper, sewing pin, wire bound sketchbook

tracing - 2026

ink on heavyweight paper

mourning cloak: bound light (pages) - 2025

cotton watercolor paper & thread, book board, lokta paper, ogura lace paper, wheatpaste

[seed] exchange - 2025

linen printed with flax (linum lewisii) & embroidered with cotton thread, stone, usnea lichen

now in a gallery, hung/bound with a frame of reclaimed pallet wood & wire

thinking through what i can offer to & in return for all that i have learned from the plants & other non-human entities around me, & what all we may yet exchange

soft launch - 2025

wisteria sinensis (seedpod, seed, branch), wire, paper, ink, cotton thread (dyed with cottonwood catkins), masking tape

book presented on a shelf made from pallet wood; each page spirals outward with a handwritten line of a poem i wrote as i went, thinking of ballistic seed dispersal, the texture of these seedpods, "invasive"ness, & soft & hard power, text below

rose/bud/thorn - 2025

honey locust, rose, wire, reclaimed pallet wood, clay (from rio grande)

beads made in the rosary tradition with a "clay" of cooked down rose petals & honey locust leaves, arch painted with my fingers in a mix of clay & sawdust

i've passed a lot of time this year under & around honey locusts, & been moved by the huge, cross-like form of many of their thorns in wilder settings & the absence of any thorns on those planted in urban settings. thinking about protection, manipulation, threats & predators now millennia gone, prayer, & from all of this...

Reformado DOF 17-03-2025 - 2025

corn (Dakota black pop-, Hopi blue, Tohono O'odham 60-day, verde de Oaxaca, multicolor de Jala, morado y blanco de Santa Cruz, bloody butcher, earth tones dent, Pueblo sweet [husk], undisclosed genetically modified variety used by argo [starch])

seedy hamsa/offering of protection for native corn varieties, on mal de ojo & the failures of language & legislation, an invitation into stewardship, too: the loose seeds are all from Jala, a town in Nayarit famous for growing the largest mazorcas in the world

esto lo hice pensando en el siguiente párrafo del artículo 4o de la constitución mexicana, que fue editado en marzo; la parte en cursiva es nueva, y ejemplifica el neoliberalismo del gobierno:

«Toda persona tiene derecho a la alimentación nutritiva, suficiente y de calidad. El Estado lo garantizará. México es centro de origen y diversidad del maíz, que es un elemento de identidad nacional, alimento básico del pueblo de México y base de la existencia de los pueblos indígenas y afromexicanos. Su cultivo en el territorio nacional debe ser libre de modificaciones genéticas producidas con técnicas que superen las barreras naturales de la reproducción o la recombinación, como las transgénicas. Todo otro uso del maíz genéticamente modificado debe ser evaluado en los términos de las disposiciones legales para quedar libre de amenazas para la bioseguridad, la salud y el patrimonio biocultural de México y su población. Debe priorizarse la protección de la biodiversidad, la soberanía alimentaria, su manejo agroecológico, promoviendo la investigación científica-humanística, la innovación y los conocimientos tradicionales.

Párrafo adicionado DOF 13-10-2011. Reformado DOF 17-03-2025»

Mucilage Drop Experiment - 2025

steel (welded with oxyacetylene), terra cotta pot, mucilage (de nopal), cornstarch, clay (from rio grande), laser prints on paper, corn husks (from Ancestral Acres), cotton thread, stone

top right image is from opening night, the rest are taken about a week post-mucilage drop; form & title draw on the Pitch Drop Experiment run out of the University of Queensland, here reimagined for olotón, over a base of documents including a US Patent Application & the UN-approved Access & Benefit Sharing Agreement between a representative of Mars inc. & Totontepec Villla de Morelos; my artist's statement in this tag (& all that follows) includes more context

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untitled - 2025

clay (from rio grande), corn silk & woven husks (from Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute), laser printed bilingual zines containing el Espacio Estatal en Defensa del Maíz Nativo de Oaxaca's 2019 Declaratoria/Declaration

unfired clay berry basket intended as a material & narrative foil to its neighbor, kept stocked with zines for the taking which contain el Espacio Estatal en Defensa del Maíz Nativo de Oaxaca's texts & end with a linktree for more on olotón

suspension I, II, III - 2025

laser prints on paper, paper (dyed with goatheads), goatheads, glue, beeswax, cotton thread (dyed with cochineal)

series of 3 [fly]paper traps, each full of goatheads of a particular ripeness, each branded "ᗡƎW∀N PEST" & printed with a 6-line poem (text below); for the opening reception we had the snack tables right under these which brought me great joy (i recreated the lemon & cranberry curd spiral tart for it)