Seeds of Abundance: Limits, Loss & Regeneration is a multi-room installation that explores abundance not through accumulation but through attention to what already surrounds us. Using natural and salvaged materials gathered on-site and from Authentique Artfarm—branches, seeds, flowers, stones, and found elements—Michele Guieu creates a series of immersive environments that invite slowing down, reflection, and participation.

In a time marked by ecological overshoot, biodiversity loss, and increasing systemic complexity, the exhibition draws inspiration from the thinking of Nate Hagens and The Great Simplification, emphasizing response over solution. Visitors are invited to engage through small gestures—touching, listening, contributing, and observing—highlighting the power of limits, care, and collective presence.

Seeds of Abundance extends a body of work that began with large-scale outdoor installations in the Mojave Desert and continues here as a quieter, more intimate meditation on loss, regeneration, and the possibility of meaning rooted in simplicity.

Visitors are invited to bring a small natural element—seed, seedpod, dried flower, or stone—and add it to A Sense of Place, a growing communal structure in the main gallery, accompanied by a handwritten note. These small gestures become acts of presence, care, and connection within the exhibition.

This exhibition is sponsored by the City of Bend, Oregon.

Seeds of Abundance: Limits, Loss & Regeneration

Scalehouse Gallery, Bend, Oregon

March 6 – April 24, 2026

Opening Reception: March 6, 5–7 PM

Interactive Installation: A Sense of Place

This installation is constructed from willow branches harvested at Authentique Artfarm, along with dried plants and flowers gathered from the farm and from friends. On the ground beneath the structure lies the bark, stripped from the branches.

Visitors are invited to join by adding a natural element—see the instructions.

The writing console was designed in collaboration with my neighbor and friend, Robert Andrews, who built and realized it. It is made from an old plank found at Authentique Artfarm and steel.

Interactive Installation: Bloom

Blacklight installation with dried plants and reflective elements
Dried local plants glow in this darkened room. Visitors are invited to place small reflective dots on the walls, gradually creating a luminous field of seeds, spores, or stars. Through simple, collective gestures, the space becomes a living constellation of light.
Please ask the gallery attendant for a small sheet of reflective dots to place anywhere on the walls. We invite you to keep your gesture abstract, allowing the field to grow freely.

Field Notes, part of the series: Mapping the Field – Topography of a garden

Field Notes is an installation of cyanotypes created from plants collected at Authentique Artfarm, printed with sunlight, then cut and mounted on wood. Some are stitched with bright thread. The pieces serve as a quiet record of place and season—a living archive of a working garden shaped through repeated acts of attention, care, and observation.

Liminal Wood: Seedskin

These branches, collected after falling and stripped of their bark, reveal smooth, pale surfaces. They are partially covered with hundreds of small, recycled, stained wood circles cut with a laser and glued individually. The process, very meditative, reflects working in the garden, where repetitive tasks don’t feel burdensome but rather invite embracing the rhythm and the moment.

Gathered: An ensemble of small wall assemblages

Gathered is a series of small assemblages created from driftwood collected along the Oregon coast many years ago, inlaid with reclaimed, stained wood. Instead of representing a specific place, these works carry traces of numerous moments—materials shaped by time and weather. They encourage close observation and slow appreciation, implying that meaning often lies in what is gathered, held, and cared for over time.

Cycle of Life: Capitulum 1 and 2, part of the series: Mapping the Field – Topography of a garden

Capitulum 1 and 2 are made from sunflower heads harvested in the garden at Authtentique Artfarm. After drying, these heads were triaged. Some heads hold onto their seeds while others release them more easily, which explains the difference between the two assemblages.
Most of the sunflowers were left in the garden for the birds to feed on the seeds. We kept the plants up, and they stayed through the winter as shelter for insect eggs for the upcoming season. The work maps the garden as a living system marked by variation, chance, and quiet transformation.

Seednet: Things That Fall Together, part of the series: Mapping the Field – Topography of a garden

Fallen pine cones assembled into clustered forms. Working with a single repeated element allows for play with scale, grouping, and the space. This piece is flexible and adapted specifically to this wall. Like many works in the exhibition, this piece reflects on limitation as a creative condition—exploring how surprise and beauty can emerge from working closely with what is already present.

Liminal Resonance (sound piece)

This sculptural sound piece, made from hand-carved suspended wooden elements, invites gentle interaction. It was inspired by fallen ponderosa pine branches I collected. This is the only work in the exhibition not entirely crafted in Bend, Oregon; it was created during my 2025 Artist-in-Residence stay at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California. The steel frame was designed in collaboration with my neighbor and friend, Robert Andrews, who built and realized the metal structure.