Sources of Inspiration

While my artworks are created in a studio, inspiration usually comes through reconnecting with nature. In fact, themes of the natural world, and our human connections to nature run through most of my work. I think of the words of science professor Robin Wall Kimmerer, “I come here to listen, to nestle in the curve of the roots in a soft hollow of pine needles, to lean my bones against the column of white pine, to turn off the voice in my head until I can hear the voices outside it: the shhh of the wind . . . and something more—something that is not me, for which we have no language” An important part of my studio practice is taking regular walks along the shoreline, listening to the swish of the waves slapping on the sand, breathing the scent of the salt air, and squinting across the water to the distant horizon. The colors change constantly, the rhythmic sounds are rough or gentle, sometimes ice crystals form a crusty white along the edge, sometimes a storm has left mounds of broken seashells tangled up on strings of seaweed.

Other times the sunlight is so bright that its brilliant reflections are almost painful to the eyes. The oceans moods are seldom the same, and bear the complexity of the sublime — vast, terrifying, and yet uplifting. In this solitude of a quiet beach walk, I am reminded of how small our personal little spheres are. The astrophysicist Carl Sagan wrote “The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home” At the same time as I consider how insignificant our short lives are, I feel gratitude and a sense of how precious life is.

Returning to the studio, I am newly invigorated, ready to turn these thoughts and emotions into colors and marks.