Hammers of Enoch, 2025

The titles of Enoch’s Thistle and Enoch's Fireweed are references to Enoch's Hammer, a name the Luddite movement gave to the tools they used to smash the machines in textile factories, a violent act of disruption whose history has been mistold. These works are the first two pieces in the Hammers of Enoch series. 

Enoch’s Thistle is a portrait of an imagined future Canada Thistle (aka Creeping Thistle), on a green ground. I think about the specific way a thistle is disruptive – it pops up in an otherwise homogeneous, neatly matching field of grass. Grass will yield to bare feet but a thistle is liable to poke you if you cross its boundary. This piece thinks about cycles and mechanisms for disruption, how disruption is a natural process and part of a rhythmic cycle, however on a less predictable schedule which is why it can be jolting for us. 

Enoch's Fireweed is a portrait of a fireweed, a prairie wildflower that is often the first to appear after a wildfire, with bright pink blooms. Fireweed is also used to make a sweet jelly, and as a food also has some anti-inflammatory properties for humans. With all of the wildfires we've been having, I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between disruption and opportunism. Aesthetically in this piece I also thought about how fluid dynamics connect the motion of smoke and water; this is reflected in the design work in the frame as well as other areas within the piece.