This work emerged as I worked on both the dissected maps and the burned figures and wondered about the connection between them. Since I save all the cutout pieces from the maps as they're dissected, I decided to burn the pieces from a map, one at a time, on top of a sheet of paper. This created matching ashes, which I pressed against a second sheet of paper. I collected all the unburned pieces and collaged them on yet another sheet. Each step took up less space, until finally only a small pile of soot, the entropic end, remained.

It wasn't until it came time to first hang this work that I decided to hang each element flush to the bottom, even with the others. The entire work appears like a sort of bar chart, reminiscent of its aesthetic-logical method of deconstruction.

In the exhibition "Trace," this work hung on the wall which divided the room displaying maps from the room displaying burned figures. On the opposite side of the wall I displayed "Double Negative," with its sand on the floor and figure burned in bleach. The wall itself became a sort of "corpus callosum," the band of nerve tissue that unites and allows information to pass between the two hemispheres of the brain.

Aloe is a soothing remedy for burns. We're comforted by the hope of reason and the illusion of control.