Gropius House

Create: Earrings

Most birchbark art involves etching designs into the fresh inner bark of the tree by hand, using the contrast of cream and cinnamon-colored natural bark to create the image. Sierra Henries takes a different approach. She burns designs into the bark, in a way that is similar to late nineteenth-century pyrographic art, but she calls upon her Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck heritage for a range of powerful and beautiful patterns.