I am currently developing a ceramic sculpture series inspired by cholla bones, responding to the loss of habitat and the practice of desert scalping. This body of work reflects both a reverence for the landscape and a desire to bring attention to the fragile ecosystems that sustain it.

Cylindropuntia bigelovii, or Teddy Bear Cholla, is one of 8 varieties of cactus plant native to the Mojave Desert. Sometimes used as poultice for joints or boiled and drank as a tea for stomach pains, cholla have long been a part of the desert landscape and found useful in North American Indigenous cultures.

Cloning itself and breaking off or blowing away in the wind, the cholla often roots where it lands, providing water conditions are right. Their spikey exterior is caught in fur, clothing, and skin- further distributing segments of the clone.

The dried skeleton wood left behind when one of these cactus dies, are also called cholla bones.