My Painting Process: A Report from the Deep, Scary Woods
Y’all, this past week I found myself running scared from my project. I started off feeling elated. Through my research, I learned that owls often engage in mutual preening behaviors, called allopreening (you can watch a pair of Spotted Owls allopreening in this video). Essentially, this behavior is the owl version of “making out” and […]
Sustaining my Artistic Practice Through Grief and Sadness
One of my goals for 2020 is to create my first body of work—something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. If you’re not familiar with the concept of a body of work, it’s a collection of pieces by the same artist that holds together stylistically (and often/usually topically). A really great example of […]
My 2020 Project: Let’s Go Deep
This year I am taking a year-long course and mentoring program offered by Annamieka Hopps Davidson called Let’s Go Deep. The program is aimed at helping artists to create a cohesive body of work, something I have wanted to do for quite some time now. I met with Annamieka a few weeks ago to talk […]
My Word of the Year for 2020: Sustain
A few years ago, I started a tradition of choosing a word for the coming year. I use my word as a guidepost, a reminder to focus, a compass heading. My word for 2019 was consistent. I chose this word because I was so frustrated by how inconsistent my work seemed to be. From one […]
The Moths Have Landed!
When I was 28 years old, I moved to Costa Rica and became a rainforest guide at Rara Avis. At night, we would hang up a sheet and illuminate it to attract moths for the lodge guests to admire. (Afterward, we would turn the light off and the moths would wander away, unharmed.) My new […]