I discovered the work of Chicago-based artist Heidi Norton via EBERSMOORE, and became an instant fan of her unique installation-based approach to photography and sculpture. Norton frequently uses living plants as a sculptural element, encasing them in layers of colored wax in conjunction alongside other studio ephemera. I sent her a few questions about her processes and approach via email, and here is what she had to say.

I think I am more interested in man's relationship to these materials versus man's interventions with them. The symbiotic relationship--a reciprocal relationship-- is what intrigues me. For example, the bee's reliance on man to help maintain their hives and the product man receives from this maintenance. My parents were beekeepers and I often assisted them as a child, learning this relationship from a young age. In order to reap the benefits of domestic plants, you must care for them. In Controlled Environments, there is an installation of shelves that are exact recreations of my windows of my studio. Here you can see plants in varying stages of life. Beside plants, there are objects, detritus, and remnants; collections that either reference these relationships or are products thereof.

Last summer I was given a queen bee cage, which looks more like a coffin for a queen bee. When making a beehive, one must introduce the queen bee, as she has not been raised with the collection of worker bees. One side of her cage/coffin has been drilled out and filled with "bee candy". As the worker bees are exposed to her pheromones, they chew through her bee candy plug. Once the plug is chewed through, she can escape and live in harmony with the other bees.

Another example of this was over the summer while making work that is currently on view in Chicago at Johalla Projects, Reasons to Cut into the Earth; I had trapped a butterfly in the hot wax that I was pouring into holes that I had dug as molds. I felt guilty that the butterfly died in my art, but liked the way it became the trophy of the piece. The next morning I had found that a community of ants had eaten out the inside of the butterfly. With that my guilt subsided--one organism contributed to the life of another.