Soon-to-be Innocent Fun

oil on canvas, 24"x36", 2021

I was wondering how interactions would look different on the other side of a global public health emergency. I looked forward to time spent together being more precious and intentional. It felt like a wrapped present just out of reach. I referenced a vintage photo of the Grand Canyon, and the mountains are from photographs of forts I had made for my two new kittens. The title is Lent from Arthur Russel’s song, Soon to Be Innocent Fun / Let’s See

Something Like a Garden

up-cycled mixed media on paper pulp, 12"x20"

2021

Old Growth

oil on canvas, 24"x36"

2020

Swiftsure

oil on canvas, 48"x108", 2020

I’d been thinking of Swiftsure Bank, which brings water into Seattle from the Pacific, and its similar structure to the latchkey kid cul-de-sac of my childhood, Mulberry Court. Reminiscing on that kid-made community made me long for more and reinforced adult bonds. I used reference images taken by family or me that reminded me of connection or restriction from it.

Shortly before and shortly after beginning this painting, I unexpectedly lost a close friend and my cat. This painting holds a lot of that initial grieving period, and in a way became about that grief too.

Sentinel 5: Excelsis (Hello Stranger)

2020

Sentinel 4: Memory as a Haunting

2020

Fineshrine

in memory of Julianne Heuel Oberlin

oil on canvas, 36"x48", 2020

A Violent Rearranging

mixed media on canvas, 12"x24"

2020

Tiding

oil and watercolor on canvas, 36"x48"

2020

The implosion of what I expected moving to Seattle to be was rough. Moving past that, I was left in a liminal space, anxious for what was next. I thought back to another in-between time—living in Wyoming, which coincided with adolescence.

“What’s next?” was abruptly answered by the pandemic. I finished this painting in the first couple weeks of lockdown.

Sentinel 3: Maybe I'm Ready to Leave

2020