Moonflower: Earth Remembered

Wet-Felted and Needle-Felted Wool, January 2026.

Moonflower: Earth Remembered is my first completed piece of 2026. It was born of grief, anger, and refusal. I have witnessed a rapid and violent transformation of the landscape since moving to rural Indiana in 2023.

My family left Chicagoland to escape concrete and steel. We fled the system that strips the land of its meaning and the people of their agency. We were searching for darkness at night, soil under our hands, and a way of living that is rooted in tradition and reciprocity.

That hope was soon dashed.

Though our home is surrounded by cornfields, a nearby town is expanding. Its growth is not being measured in community, but in franchises. Recently a Burger King and a Wendy’s appeared. There are rumors of a Jimmy John’s and a drive-through coffee house. I have seen this pattern before. Corporations arrive. Small businesses collapse. Distinct places are flattened into a replica of each other. Culture is erased. What was once meaningful is replaced by what is seemingly convenient.

The world from which I had run followed me here.

The land itself has been violated. Within a year, a cell tower rose from a cornfield, less than a mile from my home. A massive electrical transformer followed. Fertile ground has been surrendered to solar fields. Drive south, and the horizon is pierced by the thousands of blinking red lights of wind turbines, standing like warning beacons. The night no longer belongs to the stars.

What was once considered indispensable agricultural land is now treated as expendable surface area for infrastructure. Under the guise of progress, the land is being carved apart, repurposed, and consumed.

Rural America is in danger.

Agricultural traditions are collapsing. Land meant to grow food and sustain life is shrinking. Cost rises while wages stagnate. When the farms fail, corporations will seize what remains. They will convert the living landscape into a dead zone of concrete, steel, and data.

Thousands of acres are already being rezoned for data centers. These structures will poison the soil, contaminate the water, and pollute the air. Industrial haze will dim the sun. Wildlife will be displaced. The illusion of efficiency will come at the cost of life itself.

Humans were not designed to live divorced from the natural world. When we surrender entirely to technological dominance, we will not evolve. We will become cogs in the machine that is the system that claims to sustain us, while it systematically destroys us, and everything that it touches.

Moonflower remembers what was taken.
He stands as a record of loss.
He refuses erasure.

This work is not decorative.
It is a warning.

Moonflower: Earth Remembered was once a sunflower.
He stood in clean water, breathed fresh air, rooted himself in rich soil, and turned his face freely toward the sun.

That was a long time ago.

As cities spread and the land hardened, he changed.
His color faded.
His yellow leaves darkened.
His once cheerful eyes grew desolate and forlorn.

Deep red lines appeared across his surface.
They are the marks of undeserved apathy and destruction.

He remembers what the world once was.
Before.

This sculptural fiber work speaks to environmental loss, collective neglect, and the quiet endurance of nature. Though altered, Moonflower remains. He has existed for millennia. He has borne witness. He holds memory. Even in the darkest of times, he refuses to disappear.