Heather Bird Harris’s work explores climate crisis, activism, and grief through cross-sector collaborations and use of natural materials. Much of her artistic practice involves in-depth research of specific places and vegetation, as well as partnerships with historians, ecologists, and botanists to further ‘map’ and reveal the relationships between ecosystems and histories of industrialization and colonization. Her site-specific materials include watercolors made from clay and coal, walnut ink, and more recently weathering rind—a material that involves weathering off the ‘rind’ of the soft clay surrounding a hard rock, such as granite.

As seen in love as large as grief demands at Spalding Nix Fine Art, drawings from Harris’s young children speckle the panels, cheery flowers and stick-houses meshed in among Harris’s yellow and brown abstract landscapes. Poetic and dreamy, but with an underlying acknowledgement of the climate grief and capitalistic violence that permeates the world today. Harris’s work is as poignant as it is joyful, an emotionally complicated journey into hanging on and letting go.

Currently completing her MFA at Georgia State University, I spoke with Harris in her Atlanta home studio about the power of intentional collaborations, the significance of her children’s hand in her work, and how to let a material reach its fullest potential.  

CLICK HERE for the full interview!