Alyssa Baker    

Cincinnati, OH         

Alyssa Baker (MFA Candidate, Clark University; BFA, University of Cincinnati DAAP) is a Cincinnati-based printmaker and mixed-media artist whose work explores trauma, healing, and resilience through the
language of the natural world. 

As Sunlight

My work begins at the porch: a space suspended between shelter and wilderness, where human life brushes quietly against the lives of birds. As a child, I sat beside my nana in the summer watching hummingbirds collide at the feeder, their tiny bodies vibrating with urgency. We sat in
silence. Instead, we listened; to rustling leaves, distant calls, wings against humid air. 

Those moments taught me that observation is not passive. To watch closely is to enter another rhythm of living. After experiencing trauma, I returned to birds and to the rituals of watching them. I became drawn to the ways they grieve, adapt, rebuild, and remember. Birds gather fragments of the world; twigs, bark, thread, plastic, fur, and weave them into temporary sanctuaries capable of holding warmth and vulnerability. Their nests mirror the fragile ways humans construct safety through memory, routine, intimacy, and place.