Riven was a huge two-room gallery wall drawing installation produced when I was a Visiting Artist with Marshall University in 2012 shortly upon my return from my Fellowship in southern France. With chalk, charcoal, gesso on the wall itself, the first larger room of the gallery had a mostly red theme that covered the two 14' by 55' walls. The second room was through a long hall and had one large black and white charcoal drawing spotlighted on the back wall. This work on some level addresses the destruction of West Virginia by coal and my reaction to mountaintop removal as a sixth generation native of the state. The title Riven refers to the action of being cleaved by force.
As part of the four-person group exhibition titled blank Space on view at the A+D Gallery of Columbia College, Chicago, I produced the wall drawing installation Dragline. The work pointed to my deep concerns about the destruction by mountaintop removal in my native West Virginia. Produced with chalk, charcoal and gesso directly on the wall the basis for the images used where of overhead views of mountaintop removal sites. As part of this exhibition and as an educational tool for the students each artist was asked to exhibit influential books, sketchbooks and preliminary drawings that informed the finished work on display. The title refers to the large dragline shovels used in coal mining.