Carla is the 2021 Southern Tier Biennial Exhibition Best in Show Winner.
Carla Stetson: I live and work in the countryside of New York state in an old barn that is home to a quite a few wild creatures besides its human occupants. My partner and I have a small apiary where we keep bees and harvest honey. The success of that endeavor depends upon human beekeepers adapting to what bee colonies want and need; we must learn to understand their complex language. I think the question of wildness versus domestication is not helpful; instead, understanding that human and natural realms are entangled in fascinating, marvelous, multiple and necessary ways is essential to survival. My personal encounters and involvement with the more-than-human world, my sense that humans are dependent on creatures often seen as insignificant, totally ‘other,’ combines with global concerns such as extinction, and gives rise to the themes that I explore in my work.
