As long as I can remember, two passions have steered the course of my life - nature and art. Synthesizing the two has been the goal of my creative endeavors. By documenting my observation of nature through photography and printmaking, my goal is to evoke a poetic and sacred feeling from the specific and "ordinary" environment that surrounds me, including the places that I walk, my own garden, and the native flora of West Virginia.

I use images of the natural world to suggest a sense of inner awareness, using the photographic and printed images as a map of an interior landscape. The photographer Alfred Stieglitz used the term "equivalent" to describe an image as a representation of something other than the apparent subject of the photograph - often implying some manifestation of the sacred.

My work uses the sacred geometry of Christianity and Buddhism - both with long traditions of devising sacred spaces in three and two dimensions - to visually organize the natural imagery in my work and to reinforce the idea of place. The concept of healing is also related to my interest in spirituality and botany. In western and eastern traditions, healing powers are ascribed to sacred images and plants. It was the monks of both religions that researched and preserved the long traditions of herbal healing in the East and the West, often using a combination of herbal remedies and religious images to cure their patients.

I enjoy combining a variety of media to create a new dynamic within traditional artistic genres. Mixing photography, printing, painting, and encaustic medium (a mixture of beeswax and varnish) provides the opportunity to engage chance and expression as part of the process of alchemy at the same time. The smell and tactile quality of beeswax mixed with other media provides layers of sensation and meaning.

                                                         Claudia T. Giannini