2011, soil and acrylic on canvas, collected organic materials and personal icons, 8 feet x 36 in. x 8 in. NFS

“It’s not just sticks and stones and dirt and rock in North Seattle artist Betty Hageman’s Soil Horizons/Personal Horizons, though this mixed-media installation might seem so at first. Hageman combines earth-stained canvas and Plexiglass vitrines filled with natural, gathered materials to suggest how her internal processes reflect and parallel the Earth’s own processes of accrual. She compares “soil horizons”, i.e., layers of rock and dirt, to strata from her own life. Hageman created her own “personal horizons” with family photos integrated with boulders and parent rock. Other materials include compost, soil, charcoal, and acrylic paint. Hageman’s work is a reminder that life, like the planet’s geology, is formed under pressure of time. And time, along with memory, is layered into her art.”
–KAT CHOW, Seattle Weekly, January 19, 2011.