in the field
Chicago, USA • SAIC Galleries • 33 E Washington St
February, 2026
The field behind Towsley’s grandparents’ home has been a lifelong site of return and departure. In this body of work, she uses it and the wheat plant as starting points to explore questions of the human experience. She makes this work while contemplating transitions of the land, self, family, and society at local and international levels.
Where is the intersection of the personal and the universal?
What all does this field hold, what will it reveal?
Works Included
in the field, performance: cow skull, artist’s book, wheatstack, book wrapping, echo bales (i), projected video work, seeking steps, artist’s grandfather’s handmade gun cabinet, wheat from artist’s family farm, grandmother’s button collection, bag made by artist’s grandmother, Songs Ida Red and Queen of the Earth, Child of the Stars played from Pete Cooper’s album, ‘American Old Time Fiddle Tunes – 98, duration: 00:25:00
field quilt, weaving fragments, 9 of Great-grandma Bertha’s quilt squares, various colors of chiffon & organza, wheat from Kansas family farm, handwritten poems and notes, cotton batting, satin backing and binding
pigment triticum, wheat pigment distilled from wheat remnants from the summer harvest of 2025 from artist’s family farm in Southeast Kansas, ceramic dish found in artist’s grandmother’s collection
echo wheat, echo weave, cotton, wool, poly-cotton blends, woven on 12-shaft floor loom, wheat remnants from the summer harvest of 2025, hanging on branch from artist’s family farm in Southeast Kansas
echo bales, echo weave, cotton, wool, poly-cotton blends, woven on 12-shaft floor loom, hanging on branch from family farm in Southeast Kansas
seeking steps, video, audio recording: original poems, excerpts from journal entries, narration inspired by conversations with Grandpa Dave, hum to Slow Me Down by Leslie Jordan, duration: 00:21:38
horizon line, handmade wheat paper made with wheat remnants from the summer harvest of 2025 from artist’s family farm in Southeast Kansas, housed in handmade stained birch frame
wheat choreo, handmade wheat paper made with wheat remnants from the summer harvest of 2025 from artist’s family farm in Southeast Kansas, housed in handmade stained birch frame
wheat heads, handmade wheat paper made with wheat remnants from the summer harvest of 2025 from artist’s family farm in Southeast Kansas, housed in handmade stained birch frame
wheatstack, artist book (1/1): handmade sheets of wheat paper made with wheat remnants from the summer harvest of 2025 from artist’s family farm in Southeast Kansas
quilt square triptych, handmade wheat paper made with wheat remnants from the summer harvest of 2025 from artist’s family farm in Southeast Kansas, found quilt squares, housed in handmade stained birch frames
quail eggs & cotton, handmade cotton paper with crushed quail eggs, housed in handmade stained birch frame
summer cicada & gifted flora, handmade abaca paper with cicada wings & chantilly snapdragon pigment, housed in handmade stained birch frame
handmade gun cabinet made by the artist’s grandfather, David Peterson