Artist Statement - 2022

Everything in the universe comes from the same source - there is a harmony, agreement, and correspondence between our spiritual and physical planes that transcends into all facets of being. "As above, so it is below. That which has been, will return again. As in heaven, so on earth."

I started dyeing paper with indigo to cope with my grandmother’s decline from Alzheimer’s disease. While I watched her mental state fade away, her spark would emerge when she sang the Army Air Corps chant, “Off we go into the wild blue yonder”. I felt a calling to paint that blue yonder and create a refuge not only for her, but for my psyche as well. My new body of work holds true to this sentiment, but looks more at resisting change and how anxiety shifts your environment. I recently moved to Seattle and have been struggling with the volatile weather (the physical plane). While making this series, I felt angry and powerless to nature as the rain, wind and cold often “destroyed” what I was making. I realized that these anxieties were only becoming more apparent as the season progressed and everything I was projecting was manifesting before me in the work. Once I embraced the elements as part of the process, I became more at peace.

The red flashe “Automatic” series and white “Untitled Spaces” are from different periods in my life, but pull from these same emotions. The “Automatic” pieces address the environmental stress of California’s wildfires and ties it with female vulnerability. I drew the parallel while I was running along a trail and became panic-stricken as I reimagined all the warnings of what can happen to a girl who runs alone or at night. As I realized I was projecting my fears onto the landscape, I became aware of the reality of this same landscape surrendering to the wildfires ravaging California. The black and white drawings are also inspired by climate change and are derived from images of glaciers combined in Photoshop and then translated on paper. When a glacier melts, it buckles, heaves and cries. Their cries remind me of places I have visited in my own despair and reminded me of how everything is, and always will be, connected.

The yonder my grandmother would sing about is the same yonder I can construct within myself or out in nature. These planes all exist as one and when we find harmony within ourselves, the universe sings in unison with us.