Alisha McCurdy works in many different mediums for her workings including sculpture, printmaking, installation, and more. Typical of much of her work, she attempts to connect her artists practices with her family members who were craftsmen and artists as well.

What she writes on her work entitled Coal Mining:

“The places that I am currently most interested in are communities and regions that have a connection to the coal mining industry.  Domestically, the coal industry is not as integral to the economy as it once was.  Consequently, unless one has grown up in a coal region, the industry remains largely unfamiliar.  Dirt, grass, and coal have become central materials within my sculpture and installations to give reference a physical site outside of the gallery setting.  Used congruously with the earthly materials are effigies of small yellow canaries that were once taken into the mines, when their songs waned and they eventually died, miners knew to flee the mine and the unsafe buildup of toxic gasses.  These yellow canaries are representative of the individual miner’s sacrifices that are often lost in the vastness of the mine industry. “

Check out her website here