The New Vein series is comprised of dried, gessoed leaves and plastic bag fragments hand-stitched to paper.  An on-going project since 2005, it's a 21st century riff on the herbarium— a collection of preserved plant specimens used for study and analysis.  But I've corrupted the botanist's intentions by seamlessly merging highlighted aspects of a leaf's structure with the ubiquitous graphic designs found on plastic bags.  My renderings are a nod to the increasingly blurred distinction between natural and man-made, but in another regard, my sewing is a way of mending— not repairing holes, but making  'wholes' from such disparate parts.