Encaustic on Wood

12.5H" x 9W" x 6D"

2026

This body of work combines salvaged farm wood from the old orchards of Silicon Valley—once known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight—with encaustic surfaces built through slow accretion. The wood, marked by age, labor, and weather, carries the imprint of an agricultural past that has largely disappeared beneath technological expansion.

Layers of molten wax are applied and fused over time, echoing the rhythms of tidal accumulation along the nearby California coast. This process mirrors natural cycles of deposit and erosion, allowing each surface to become a record of duration, memory, and environmental change.

By uniting these materials and methods, the work bridges two landscapes that hold personal significance: the cultivated inland valley and the shifting coastal edge. The pieces exist as quiet convergences—where growth, loss, and transformation are held in tension, and where histories of land use are preserved through material and touch.

-Lisa Moriarty