Bonnie Peterson
Oil Can Graphs, 2025
Embroidery on silk, emerging from oil cans Each approx 8" x 8" x 30"
Climate graphs of heatwaves, atmospheric warming, Arctic amplification, fossil fuel emissions and other climate variables emerge as spokes.
Bonnie Peterson
Insect Apocalypse, 2024
Embroidery on silk & velvet 25" H x 23" W
Biodiversity of insects is threatened worldwide. Loss of insect diversity and abundance is expected to provoke cascading effects on food webs and jeopardize ecosystems. A citizen science project by the Krefeld Entomological Society measured the biomass of flying insects in protected areas for 27 years.
Bonnie Peterson
Permafrost Boreholes, 2025
Embroidery on silk & velvet 50" H x 52" W
The Arctic is warming more than two times faster than the global average. Permafrost temperatures are rising at a much faster rate than the Arctic air temperature, and have risen between 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius in the last 30 years. As a result, permafrost layers are melting. Permafrost thaw contributes to a positive feedback loop that further accelerates the warming of Earth, releasing carbon dioxide and methane directly into the atmosphere, and contributing to the spread of devastating Arctic wildfires. Permafrost can be used as a paleothermometer—fluctuations of air temperature from the late 19th and 20th centuries can be obtained by measuring temperature in deep permafrost boreholes. Warming since the late 1960s has been observed in permafrost temperature profiles from many locations.
