In 2023 I served as artist-in-residence at Isle Royale National Park, a remote island in the north of Lake Superior. As artist-in-residence I stayed in the historic Dassler Cabin on a rocky promontory at the northeast end of the island, isolated for three weeks. I was given use of a canoe and paddled around the islands and peninsulas where the rocks were most visible.
The rocks of Isle Royale are over a billion years old. Part of the Great Midcontinent Rift, they formed when the North American continent tried to tear itself apart; huge amounts of lava flooded areas from Ontario to Kansas. It is the deepest healed rift yet discovered, and possibly the largest lava flow on earth. In these rock portraits I hint at this fiery past, bridging millennia in a single image.