Bamboo Farm Diptych

A day spent at Brieri Bamboo Farm, west of the town of Guapiles, Costa Rica, provided many seeds of inspiration for "Bamboo Farm Diptych". The owner of the farm, Brian Erikson was originally from Wisconsin, where he worked as a carpenter, craftsman and toymaker before he and his wife, Patricia, decided to drive to Nicaragua. While there, "they teamed up with a small, ambitious but very inexperienced bamboo project." From Nicaragua, they moved to Costa Rica, and eventually, Brian set up his own bamboo farm and workshop.

I spent the day on the farm with them, photographing and learning about the many different types of bamboo and their varied uses. A beautiful clear river with smooth boulders and stones worn from rushing water ran through the farm. We walked through forests of bamboo, with gnarled, tangled exposed roots that looked like they could walk.

I have abstracted the elements of roots, rocks, water, and tropical flowers and translated them into movement, texture, and color � uniquely expressed through the visual textures and patterns of the fabrics, as they become the design elements. The abstraction of these elements is contrasted with the realism of the photo transfer of bamboo.