• Studio Relay •Café Allongé, (Very) Tiny Table Top Theatre •Separately & Together •Set Design for Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Deuces are Wild •Stoops •Lakeline •Pigmented PotsMadison Children's Museum Reception •Working with the AlphabetBooksCoversRest of the Forest •6000 ProjectHandbagsAddition = SubtractionJewelryPedestrian Art for Democracy •When the Red Ball Drops in GreenwichGrapefruitTeapotsPaper VesselsVesselsEmbroidered ClothingLeaf PiecesWearables• notes collaborative work

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013

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    Mixed media, 2012-2013


Separately & Together
by Bird Ross and Paige Davis

It all began with our intrigue of John Bartram’s 2 guinea boxes and how they were shipped by Bartram from Philadelphia to Peter Collinson in London via Benjamin Franklin and continued with the fascination of their contents: botanical discoveries, live specimen, insects, letters, images, questions and conundrums. We loved the way information was shared (letters separated by 3 to 12 months in transit) and how the constraints of the times (rats on board, wars, indifferent “chaperones”) provided fabulous stories (goods never received, unidentifiable contents, seeds eaten) about how the world of botany was unfolding across the Atlantic in the mid-1700’s.

The two of us wanted to foster our own exchange and chose to do it by sending parcels to each other. We chose the alphabet to keep us organized and the USPS to keep things moving. We met in North Carolina and in Canada; we met over the phone, often. We devoted over a year to our venture by expanding our art practice, sharing revelations found in nature and our studios, contributing to our friendship, and above all being curious. We blogged about it (separatelyandtogether.wordpress.com) and now we’ve realized the physical objects as a collection, configured as a series of shelves, for this exhibition.

Here are some of the places the alphabet took us:
• Abstract, Azalea, Alder, Art
• Band-aid box, Black-Berry Lilies, Bottles
• Common Critters Collection (Crow’s foot, Cow Parsnip, Cardinal Flower)
• Detritus and Dance (Diligently Divert your gaze…)
• (For)Evergreen
• Fred Farmer, his Fence & Field
• Glamorous, Graceful and very Generous

Our parameters were constricted by the letters we assigned each other (we each got every other letter, Paige got A, Bird got B and so forth) and packing our parcel legitimately for the post (there were occasions where we had to renegotiate our shipping containers…) These parcels revel the fun we’ve had, the struggles we’ve manage and the solutions we’ve carved for our exchange. They reveal bits about who we are, both separately and together.