Elaine Booth

I am a rock climber. I am continually in awe of and deeply aware of the space that I occupy on a rock, whether that be the micro changes of the rock face I cling to by my fingertips, one small half centimeter of difference in depth means I fall or stay on, or the macro, tens, hundreds, even thousands of feet below and all around me that consume and hide me in plain sight to onlookers below. The great designer Isamu Noguchi speaks about play as a purposeful approach to understanding the way we occupy space. As an outdoorswoman the space that I occupy, play in, and ultimately use as inspiration is outside; how I use that space, helps me better understand my place within it. In the same way that I pay close attention to scale as I play, I observe and use scale in my work. When I observe land, ecosystem, and habitat I cannot ignore the macro and micro details of how those systems interact with one another. The caterpillar, while micro makes such a difference on the zoomed-out large-scale macro landscape that it occupies. What I find so delightful and insightful about creating landscape is it relates to the way systems work in scale.  My work is detailed, precise, and intricate close-up; it is vast, magnificent, and full-bodied when viewed far away.  What I hope to convey in my work is a system that works so intricately together that from far away it thrives just as perfectly as it does close up. I want the viewer to understand the importance of scale and detail when it comes to ecosystems, land, and wild places as well as their relationships, the spaces they occupy, and ultimately themselves. The macro is just as vital as the micro.