23 and
Me
48”w x 36”h
Collage: acrylic, paper, photos, ink, charcoal, on cradled wood panel
Collage: acrylic, paper, photos, ink, charcoal, on cradled wood panel
My artwork began with a DNA test.
Searching for health answers among the genetic variants led me down a fascinating rabbit hole of research. What traits are genetic? What mutations are inheritable? Why do I have so much German DNA?
And that research led me down the rabbit hole of geneology. Man, oh man.
There I discovered the stories of the people who handed me these genes. Harrowing stories. Amazing stories. Early pioneers from Sweden and England braving wagon trains across the untamed West. Great grandmothers living in earthen dugouts through harsh winters in a new land. Great grandfathers with 9 wives and 45 children. Ancestors alongside George Washington when he crossed the Delaware. And generations of Danish farmers and fishers and housekeepers and blacksmiths descended from Vikings.
I became fascinated with the overlap between the ancestry pedigree charts and the genetic karyotype charts. The invisible genomes that were the actual linkages to these early pioneers and Scandinavian immigrants.
At a cellular level, their traits, their diseases, their struggles, and their hopes...are mine.
Searching for health answers among the genetic variants led me down a fascinating rabbit hole of research. What traits are genetic? What mutations are inheritable? Why do I have so much German DNA?
And that research led me down the rabbit hole of geneology. Man, oh man.
There I discovered the stories of the people who handed me these genes. Harrowing stories. Amazing stories. Early pioneers from Sweden and England braving wagon trains across the untamed West. Great grandmothers living in earthen dugouts through harsh winters in a new land. Great grandfathers with 9 wives and 45 children. Ancestors alongside George Washington when he crossed the Delaware. And generations of Danish farmers and fishers and housekeepers and blacksmiths descended from Vikings.
I became fascinated with the overlap between the ancestry pedigree charts and the genetic karyotype charts. The invisible genomes that were the actual linkages to these early pioneers and Scandinavian immigrants.
At a cellular level, their traits, their diseases, their struggles, and their hopes...are mine.
a karyotype︎
A karyotype chart is used to tell whether a person has the proper number of chromosomes, 46, arranged in 22 numbered pairs called autosomes. The 23rd pair is the sex chromosome... females have two X chromosomes, and males have and X and a Y.
a cast of
characters
︎
Most of these chromosomal figures are made using actual photos of my direct ancestors.
It was an incredibly fun challenge to tell a visual story about each person, while maintaining the characteristic X-shape of a chromosome.
Can I show an occupation? Describe an outfit with just a collar and a cuff? How can I use the negative space between the “legs”? (Much more of a challenge for the female figures.) Turns out it’s a good place for a broom or a fish or 8 wives or a drowned woman.
It was an incredibly fun challenge to tell a visual story about each person, while maintaining the characteristic X-shape of a chromosome.
Can I show an occupation? Describe an outfit with just a collar and a cuff? How can I use the negative space between the “legs”? (Much more of a challenge for the female figures.) Turns out it’s a good place for a broom or a fish or 8 wives or a drowned woman.
Lorenzo Dow Young
My GGGG Grandfather
Brigham Young’s brother. Helped lead the first Mormon pioneer wagon trains across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains into Utah Territory. He had 8 wives and 25 children. Lorenzo was born in 1807 and his youngest kid died in 1963. That’s 156 years for 2 generations!
My GGGG Grandfather
Brigham Young’s brother. Helped lead the first Mormon pioneer wagon trains across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains into Utah Territory. He had 8 wives and 25 children. Lorenzo was born in 1807 and his youngest kid died in 1963. That’s 156 years for 2 generations!
Jonathon Pugmire II
My GGGG Grandfather
Converted to Mormonism in England. Accidentally drowned a woman while he was baptizing her in a river. Her husband didn’t agree it was an accident, so J. Pugmire landed in jail. After a week, and eyewitness testimony he was released. Thought it might be a good time to leave the country, so he headed to Utah Territory to join the Mormons there.
My GGGG Grandfather
Converted to Mormonism in England. Accidentally drowned a woman while he was baptizing her in a river. Her husband didn’t agree it was an accident, so J. Pugmire landed in jail. After a week, and eyewitness testimony he was released. Thought it might be a good time to leave the country, so he headed to Utah Territory to join the Mormons there.
Hannah Schwarz Jensson
My GG Grandmother
Raised in Sweden. Her best friend Ingar converted to Mormonism and asked Hannah to accompany her and her new husband to America. Would she please come, join the wagon train to Utah, and help with raising Ingar’s future children? Sure she would! Would she consider becoming Ingar’s husband’s Second Wife? Sure she would! Sadly, Ingar died at 25, and Hannah was left to raise her AND Ingar’s 8 children, all under the age of 10.
My GG Grandmother
Raised in Sweden. Her best friend Ingar converted to Mormonism and asked Hannah to accompany her and her new husband to America. Would she please come, join the wagon train to Utah, and help with raising Ingar’s future children? Sure she would! Would she consider becoming Ingar’s husband’s Second Wife? Sure she would! Sadly, Ingar died at 25, and Hannah was left to raise her AND Ingar’s 8 children, all under the age of 10.
John William Windley
My GG Grandfather
When he was just 14 years old, John Windley converted to Mormonism in Loughborough, England. He came to America to be part of the “Saints” trek to Utah Territory and with his new wife Mary, made a honeymoon trip across the West, driving a wagon full of woodstoves. It was a brutal trip, with a very sick wife, and was the beginning of many years of hard work and near starvation, pioneering a new land. He chose to have his photo taken holding his Book of Mormon, so I honored his choice here as well.
My GG Grandfather
When he was just 14 years old, John Windley converted to Mormonism in Loughborough, England. He came to America to be part of the “Saints” trek to Utah Territory and with his new wife Mary, made a honeymoon trip across the West, driving a wagon full of woodstoves. It was a brutal trip, with a very sick wife, and was the beginning of many years of hard work and near starvation, pioneering a new land. He chose to have his photo taken holding his Book of Mormon, so I honored his choice here as well.
Vivian Windley & Anders Nielsen
My mother and Great Grandfather
I don’t think my mother ever met her grandfather, a hard-working Danish blacksmith. Her parents immigrated to America before she was born. Vivian became a stewardess in the 1940s and used her flight passes to travel across Europe and to visit her Danish cousins, but Anders was not alive at that time. I was happy to give them their only grandfather/granddaughter dance.
Persis Goodall Young
My GGGG Grandmother
Persis Goodall married Lorenzo Dow Young, Brigham Young’s brother, when she was 20, and they became Mormons a few years later. Plagued by illness, and many of her children dying prematurely, she was forced to move constantly across the entire country, as the Mormons were driven from place to place, often at the threat of death. Lorenzo’s missionary and pioneering work left her to manage alone for long stretches at a time. And when Lorenzo took his first “plural wife” she separated from him a few years later. It may have not have been the polygamy, but a personal issue with this new wife, as Persis later became “sealed” to a different man as his second polygamous wife.
My GGGG Grandmother
Persis Goodall married Lorenzo Dow Young, Brigham Young’s brother, when she was 20, and they became Mormons a few years later. Plagued by illness, and many of her children dying prematurely, she was forced to move constantly across the entire country, as the Mormons were driven from place to place, often at the threat of death. Lorenzo’s missionary and pioneering work left her to manage alone for long stretches at a time. And when Lorenzo took his first “plural wife” she separated from him a few years later. It may have not have been the polygamy, but a personal issue with this new wife, as Persis later became “sealed” to a different man as his second polygamous wife.