Credo

Days I am somewhere

here of myself, at a snails pace

I have made it to the door

I am in the garden with all the living

Where, while I did have my head on 

I was falling; my mind taking in 

the dark shape/I let it crow 

ricocheted to the ground, no 

body—who may be dead

or dreaming

Open in a room on an 

in breath, the world in my lungs

has bolted, flowered to 

release the dark 

The color spooned out

fed to the evening—

wind surfed a brushy sky

and touched/

the compactness of my cells

Woke up, and broke through

Tenets

What does it mean to be a keeper? 

      I.         To take not because you want

Lift up the seed and the soil 

and the bird/like the younger sibling

on a step stool or a stone,

to help them reach the sky.

    II.         To place an ear below the water

listen for the vibrations that come

from many directions/connections

To remember, that even an ant 

has a home, keeps footsteps light.

In the past I made installations that were modular in personality, possessing the capacity to be broken down; to later become something new. Using a glossary of materials specific to environment and personal memory, I aimed to create destabilizing connections by folding interior and exterior environments into each other. The floor became a map or game board, in which all the pieces that covered it were moveable. Its flexible nature alluded to childhood play, or world building. I remain curious about how we exist in our own brain or body, habitat, or collective—each being equally relevant

As I return to painting, I am pulling these ideas back into the picture plane: of flora and fauna and how they push up against/into the structures we build; of the form, color, and behavior of the natural world: from the growth pattern of a nautilus shell, to the mycorrhizal networks beneath our feet, to the companionship of Sandhill Cranes. I am interested in what nature reveals of our tangled interior spaces, and how these collide to tell a story—creating theater in the process. There is much we can learn about how to live, if only we re-frame our perspective.

This ongoing investigation grew out of my own origins: a unique upbringing in a one-bedroom cabin that my father built, amidst a grove of Southern Live Oaks and rich biodiversity. Twenty-three years of my life were marked by the devastation of hurricanes. Post-storm, when the downpour ceased, my sister and I would go outside and look for things that had been lost. During these expeditions we behaved as kid ecologists, mapping every inch of the land. I fell in love with the smell of soil after rain, the way life persisted, and the magic unearthed through exploration.