Not our 

Works by Jane Dodds in Clay, Cardboard, and Mycelium 

Canton Projects is pleased to announce the opening of Not our, an exhibition by artist Jane Dodds, on Thursday, January 8, 2026 from 6:00 to 8:30 pm. Not our will be on view Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, from 12  to 6 pm,  through January 31, 2026. 

The works in the exhibition were made by Dodds over the last nine years to bring attention to the “cry of the Earth.” That cry is, in effect, a call for change in the face of damages to the Earth’s systems caused by escalating increases in carbon emissions and other human-driven activities. Not our makes visible a shift in perspective from ownership and right to exploit the natural world, to recognition that people are part of nature, and our harms to Earth can threaten human existence.  

For Dodds, action began in 2017 with a switch from gas to electric firing of her ceramics. She simultaneously embarked on a continuing project producing analog records of climate change by imprinting CO2 data on the clay before firing. 

The ceramic globes in Not our each bear a specific month’s mean global CO2 level, which, read together, show a continuous rise from 2017 to 2025. Mindful that evolution will likely go on with or without humans, Dodds creates “future bird descendants,” each also imprinted with a daily CO2 global mean and date. Several are exhibited here.

The exhibition includes  drawings on heat-scorched cardboard boxes of fauna common in the Northeast. Belonging to Dodds’ “Half Earth” series, they are inspired by E.O.Wilson’s theory calling for the return of half of Earth’s land and seas to nature in order to restore the planet’s systems and preserve remaining wild places. Dodds has let half the land on which she lives upstate revert to its more natural state; the animals on the boxes are ones she has seen or photographed with a trail cam. She chose cardboard  for the project because it is as fragile as disappearing wildlife habitats, and as life itself. 

Also on display are recent exploratory works—including two landscape pieces—that Dodds created from a living material: mycelium. Mycelium is a branching mass of interconnected threads that absorbs nutrients and water for a fungus. It is low-impact, biodegradable, and carbon-storing, and can be grown from “waste materials,” such as coffee grounds and sawdust. Dodds  grows, forms, and ultimately stops mycelium from growing when her artwork is complete. 

Dodds focused on painting in her earlier art practice and had a career as a planner/writer for interpretive exhibitions. She left her native Illinois long ago for New York City and currently divides her time between Brooklyn and Germantown, NY. 

Top:     Not our Landscape #2  |  2025  |  Myceliated substrate, plastic cars, ceramic shards.

Bottom:  Future Bird Descendant, 420.61 ppm CO2 on 11.21.23 | 2023-2024 | Sculpture clay, underglazes, nichrome wire.

Photographs available upon request.

Exhibition design: Scott Guerin Planning & Design