Artist Statement
Nature inspires me, specifically the tree species that surround me. I speak to them and I like to think they are speaking to me. In fact, I believe they started it. I never considered a conversation between the trees and myself as a possibility, but I remember the day I was struggling for inspiration and I spied the muscular roots of a tree planted in the sidewalk screaming to break free of its impossibly crowded root bed. That was the first whisper. The second came when I was walking past a trio of old oaks in my nearby park. I looked at their crooked branches reaching for each other and I felt electricity, some sort of current in the air around me. After that, I was aware of the constant chatter and I gave in to the seduction. I never looked back. They became my models and my muses. They refreshed my mind, gave me solace and reminded me to slow down. I mourned the ones I lost to old age, pests and neglect and now I find myself trying to save their offspring and trying to speak to the world in my own language what I believe they are telling me: “Act!”
It makes sense that the trees are talking to me. I hear the ocean sometimes, too. Others may be tuned in to the birds or the vibrations of geologic formations. We are not separate from nature…we are nature. When did we stop listening?
We are living in a time of rapid and disastrous ecological change that is the muck of our own making, propped up by stories and false truths we tell ourselves to justify our complicity in crimes against nature and each other.
How do we create a new narrative? Where do we look for answers, new inspirations for new systems? The stories that we tell ourselves are lies at their core, but the stories that nature can tell us are universal truths.
I’ll take my chances with the trees.
I am a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on humanity’s connections to the natural world. My artistic language is informed by the natural sciences, history, literature, current events and the songs in my playlists.
Other Writing
A Shared Manifesto