In 2024, I was moved by a concurrence of influences. I’d just read The Abstract Wild by Jack Turner, a series of passionate ecology essays on our loss of wild places, I was engaged in a project to restore native plants on my small property, and there were regular mountain lion sightings a long a nature trail very near to my home. Each experience asked me to learn more about the land on which I reside, and examine my place within it.

One quote from my reading struck me to my core. “Dig in someplace— like a great fir driving roots deep into a rocky ridge to weather storms that are inseparable from the shape of its roots. Allow the spirits of your chosen place to speak through you. Say their names…Force the spirits of your place to be heard.” Jack Turner.

This series also represents my first foray into the world of abstraction. Abstraction represents more than the physical forms, relations, and colors visibly seen. It is the resonance of those visual experiences on the soul on our unique feelings. Painting these has required more than learning new techniques it has been an experience of understanding my internal landscape, its interface with the outer landscape and how I uniquely express that as a visual language.

These pieces represent the beginning of a larger body of work that I’m still exploring. Enjoy