The Queen Issue (v. 17)

thing I hadn’t been able to see when I was younger. A
couple months later I drove through the Four Corners
region, places we’d gone to often as a family on road trips
growing up, but that I’d forgotten. When I got back to
my studio I couldn’t stop thinking about that part of the
country — the history, the mythology, the fragile, sacred
beauty. I found in moons and planets I could explore
what haunted me in the desert while still moving into
another space. In painting celestial spheres I found a way
to wrestle with a sense of feeling at home in a place that
looks like another world. There is a mythology of the
desert in the cosmology of space.
TELL US ABOUT THE PAINT PIGMENTS
YOU CREATE.
A couple summers ago I was painting outside in Abiquiu
when the wind knocked over my easel. The painting was
wet and filled with dirt. I realized it made sense that the
landscape should become a part of the painting. I started
reading about making my own pigments and experimented
with making paint from the sands I’d collect on
road trips. I’m slowly building a collection of color made
from sand, dirt, and cacti.
YOUR STYLE SEEMS VERY MINDFUL, HOW
DO YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU AND YOUR
BABY WEARS?
Honestly most days I wear a dirty paint jumpsuit and
Wyeth just runs around in his diaper. But I love clothing
made from natural materials that echo the colors and
lines in the landscapes that haunt my work. We try to
only support independent designers whose pieces are
ethically made, who are honest about where their fab
rics come from and how their workers are treated. That
means buying Wyeth’s clothing a size bigger so it will last
longer, shopping at thrift stores, having fewer things but
the things we do have being things we love and save up
for. It also means that when I get out of a jumpsuit I tend
to wear the same thing over and over.
above: photo by Richard Combs