How did we get here? 

Challenging defined parameters of usefulness, a discarded nestable pallet is picked from the dump; a passive device of consumption becomes an active tool for generation. The negative voids of the original pallet are cast into paper, then the voids of the paper castings are traced into drawings. The drawings are cut into stencils, printed into monotypes, combined into collages, returned to drawings, translated into fabric, ceramics, and on and on. The pallet is made of composite wood chips, the paper castings a blend of recycled paper, the collages torn and reassembled from parts into wholes. New things are made from their nearness in space, time, or relationship and in ongoing exchange, not just delivering but giving and receiving. This body of work is a pause in the cycle of exchange; the sending back and forth of both physical materials and ideas between the artists’ homes in Bellingham and Tacoma. The show is a collaborative effort in which two artists look at the same objects and continue to find new and different shapes in the language of the pallet.

How did we get here? 

By pallet. 

—Rebecca Padilla & Amy Simons

Amy Simons is an artist based in Bellingham, WA. She earned a BFA from the University of Washington and an MFA  from Arizona State University. Her foundational training in ceramics and textiles informs her approach to constructing work through form and surface, but she is drawn to printmaking for qualities of surprise, reversal, and the medium's ability to open new pathways or habits of thought. From handheld objects to architectural-scale collage, simple shapes repeat, reflect, or otherwise reveal their two-sidedness. Tumbled together in relational composition, the shapes mimic how we organize ourselves: forming patterns intentionally, subconsciously, by luck, or mistake.

Rebecca Padilla is an interdisciplinary visual artist and educator living and working in Tacoma, WA. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Oklahoma and a Master of Fine Art at Arizona State University. Since moving to the United States at age 10, she has lived a transient life and is influenced by the many places she has loved. Her work explores themes of ecological grief, belonging, and transience through a wide variety of materials and processes. She grounds her practice in the words of anthropologist Tim Ingold, who says, “The forms of objects are not imposed from above, but grow from the mutual involvement of people and materials in an environment..-we work from within the world, not upon it”.  Ultimately, she strives to make work that deepens our understanding and care for landscapes and one another.