Observing Wonderland through Little Windows

Open Studio Tour May 17th and 18th at The Five Acre Wood in West Chester, Pennsylvania

Framed work available here!

Little Windows

Observing Wonderland Through Little Windows

“It is surprising that many of the commonest and most interesting everyday phenomena, though they lie right before the eyes of every (hu)man, are never seen by the great majority of people. Most persons are walking through wonderland with their eyes shut.”

-Liberty Hyde Bailey

There are so many ways to see, and so many little windows through which to observe the wonderland that surrounds us, but all our necks are bent and our eyes — those magical little windows — are straining to see the world from where we are perched — through the glassy, all-promising and so consuming, little windows of our phones. We humans seem to always find ways to not see.

I’ve been keeping journals in which I obsessively make marks for most of my life. Often, I am mesmerized by the complexity of the world underfoot, other times I wallow in my smallness.

This work, Little Windows, began on 23 February 2025, with the 100 Day Project. It also began when we moved to The Five Acre Wood in December of 2018 - 200 years after the house was built, and one year before the pandemic. When society as we knew it was shut down, we were fortunate to have this world to observe. It started with digging a garden and moving rocks that are abundant in our soil. Rocks which I made paint out of, too, but that is another story — it is so easy to get lost on other paths here.

I set out to make marks in different ways often, alongside my daily journaling. I used my non-dominant hand one year, wrote poems another. This year I explored print making after spying an alluring and itty-bitty press through the glassy window of Instagram. Since then, I’ve made hundreds of prints. As I looked over the work, I discovered that the majority of the pieces represent the wonderland surrounding me — the plants and animals, objects spit up by the land and the house, and of course, through Pearl, our pup. I often try to see the world through her little windows, but when I scrunch down, I don’t move as fast. She alerts me to the Heron eating the Snake, to a Rabbit’s burrow, to a Chipmunk’s den, and too, to every single biker and walker along Samuel Road — much to their surprise. As for the plants and flowers and trees and seeds, I am learning about them through my own adventures in Ungardening.

I’ve combined my observations with a map of the land and have arranged them into sections. The Rat Room, for example, is one of the oldest rooms in our house, built in 1818 according to the stone Walter encountered when he tore the room apart and chipped away the plaster. He found, in addition to the rotting and smelly rat that gave the room it’s new epithet — corpses, skeletons, mummies, nests, and artifacts too — artifacts lost, and artifacts tucked into the room as it was being built, for good luck. This room has exhaled fragments of its own being, sharing stories of a house inhabited for over 200 years.

Boxes of Found Things

Through ungardening and my attempt to rewild the land, I am learning about roots and seeds and soil and plants. Some, like the enchanting Jack-in-the-Pulpit, are desperate to be here and pop up wherever they may. Others, like the wretched Japanese Barberry, have taken over with the cockiness of a bully with a gun and have grown taller than me. They have created safe havens for the white-footed-mouse beneath their treacherous barbed arms, which in turn allow deer ticks to thrive. In the woodland, I’ve also found another generation’s refuse in the tangles as I unfurl it.

The house exhales.

The land exhales.

And I exhale.

The dry point Tetrapak printing process brings out the certainty of the land, where the poems and left-handed drawings reveal more subtle observations. They are stops on a map - every one with a story to tell.

I invite you to exhale and I hope that in sharing the views through my little windows, like Pearl sharing hers with me, you can walk through the world a little differently and see the astonishments that abound!

PS: In addition to using trash as my sub straight, I’ve printed on scrap paper from journals we make at Peg and Awl. Walter made frames out of scrap FSC certified oak from furniture and other treasures we make here. I used the rest of the wood scrap to heat up our sauna on Temperature Terrace, stop 6 on the map. The framer, too, rejoiced in using their scrap museum glass and board for the framing.

Trash Bouquets of Garlic Mustard and Stiltgrass

Tetra Pak Prints, Tools of the Trade, Ceramic Artifacts Palettes

Dog, Dog, Goose

Self Portrait!