Every Sheep Farmer Needs an Artist

Pratt’s Fine Arts, Dock 72, Brooklyn, NY,

September 22 - October 17, 2025

Photo by Dylan Bosch

Every Sheep Farmer Needs an Artist unfolds through an ongoing collaboration with Turkana Farms in upstate New York, rooted in the yearly shearing cycle and the sheep's life cycle, where husbandry, care, and seasonal labor directly shape the work. I work with a flock of approximately 37–42 American Karakul ewes, born with curly, shiny, dark black wool that gradually straightens and shifts to brown, eventually turning gray by the age of two. Returning each year to the same flock, I work with wool that changes as the sheep grow—each fleece has its own character, and these constant changes guide the direction, form, and scale of the installation. At this stage, the project is truly a collaboration with the sheep.

The work grew out of A Cloak of Red, Slow as a Carpathian Rock, commissioned by the River Valley Arts Collective (RVAC), curated by Marisa Espe, with support from the Emergency Grant of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The project began through RVAC’s introduction to local sheep farmer Mark of Turkana Farms, establishing a long-term collaboration that continues to shape the work.

The project is inseparable from my Carpatho-Rusyn heritage, a stateless ethnic group from the Carpathian Mountains of Europe, where sheep farming and collective care were central to survival. By deconstructing and reconstructing ancestral materials, I reimagine material folk heritage through memories of childhood and intergenerational practice. Since immigrating to the United States in 2017, I have connected this ancestral knowledge to my life in rural Upstate New York, working alongside farmers, shearers, and flocks. Through the continuation of shearing, felting, and wool processing, I situate inherited knowledge within a contemporary context, allowing cultural memory to evolve rather than disappear.