Rebecca Cummins

Artist Statement

Existence has overpowered Books.
Today I slew a mushroom. 
- Emily Dickinson, 1874

During COVID lockdown, I foraged for fungi and made spore prints from hundreds of mushrooms gathered in the mountains, golf courses, city parks, my yard, and the beach. A spore print is made by placing the cap of a mushroom on paper or glass. Over time, the spores fall, producing a fine powder on the substrate. Witnessing the spores drop is magical; it’s as if they are drawing themselves on the glass or paper I provide. Paradoxically, the images formed by the spores resemble photographic negatives. The piles of spores are 3- dimensional, fragile, and easily disturbed; in Spore Drift they are documented with the camera. I’ve long been inspired by science, its history, and instrumentation, resulting in artworks that present visual interpretations of light, time, and natural phenomena within a variety of photographic, sculptural and conceptual frameworks. Installations and images have included a machine for making rainbows, sun and moon pointers, paranoid dinner table devices, site-specific camera obscuras - and a variety of approaches to marking time.

Rebecca Cummins | Seattle, WA

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