We must use what we have to invent what we desire. —Adrienne Rich alchemy: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation or combination Prairie Skin, a work in progress, is a life-size, reversible, pieced and quilted construction which is large enough to wrap a body. Part of my Mapping Nebraska project, this piece is informed by my travels across the state and my memory of its prairies and grasslands. I remember my first art teacher’s teacher telling me …

The traveler who has lost his way doesn’t want to know where he is. What he wants to know is “where are the others?”— Alfred North Whitehead I’m mapping Nebraska: making a stitched, drawn and digitally imaged cartography of the state where I live. Locating myself. And the viewer. Trying to understand the place where I am. I began by drawing all of Nebraska—95 squares stitched together to form a 15-foot Locator Map. My map records physical …