As a painter, photographer and letterpress artist, my work explores intersections between visual and verbal language systems asking questions about how these systems shape and frame our perceptions and understandings. I focus this investigation from within and among the traditions of still life, western landscape, and conceptual art. My current photography and letterpress-based projects are focused on intimate, often overlooked encounters between the natural and the built environment that reflect larger questions around agency and instrumentality. I have been taking photographs that examine quiet encounters: expanses of sidewalk interrupted by profusions of moss; interactions between the roots of large urban trees and the concrete that wants to confine them; and domestic still life arrangements. I pair these image series with texts, either as letterpress text printed directly onto the photograph or, as photographs of letterpress type blocks positioned as if actors on a stage. Just as I am asking questions about relationships between image and text— how does the placement and content of the texts influence our understanding of the image and vice versa— I am asking similar questions about relations between the natural elements and their urban environments.