my valuable harvesting knife

My Valuable Harvesting Knife began as a collaboration with student Jiayue Chai (GSE ’26), inspired by a material sample we encountered during a visit to the Penn Materials Library. The sample demonstrated how stacked, laser-cut acrylic can capture and refract light along its edges, creating a distinctive “sparkling” effect. After Jiayue adapted the technique in the Studio, I became interested in applying the process to my own work.

The resulting piece draws on the agricultural histories of the Mid-Atlantic and the ways those histories continue to shape regional identity and cultural inheritance. Growing up in Delaware, I was particularly interested in the state’s history as a major producer of peaches during the 19th century. In the late 1880s, Peach Yellows disease devastated the industry from which it never fully recovered—yet the peach blossom remains Delaware’s state flower today.