At the age of twelve, I had a mystical experience with a tree outside the kitchen window on 90th Street and Elmhurst. With that experience, something happened that changed me forever. Even now, many years later, I see trees as sacred entities where I find a deep sense of belonging and meaning. They are spiritual beings, each with a story to tell. 

That experience of awe, wonder, and connectedness with spirit is at the center of my art practice. Every time I sit to draw, I enter circular time-space and surrender to its alchemical power. My work explores themes of spirituality as well as identity and culture through pastel paintings of nature. 

I am fascinated by mystical liminal states of in-betweenness, portals to otherness, and amorphous forms. My art practice is the center of my being in the world; it gives me a sense of oneness with the Universe, of belonging and expansion. The textural play between soft and hard pastels on smooth or ragged Indian paper adds to the push and pull of my creative process. 

My tree stories start by being present during meditative walks in nature. Whether in an urban setting like Central Park, New York City, or the Mashomack Preserve in Shelter Island, New York, my senses become hyperaware around trees. My spirit attunes to specific trees, stumps, branches, and trunks and the stories they have to tell, or at least, the stories I interpret. I take many photos and after much thought, I choose specific ones to turn into pastel paintings. 

These visual stories reference animism and the mystical power of trees and everything around them, including stones, sticks, fungi, leaves, and grass. The complete composition makes up a sacred space of transcendence and transformation. It is in this place, the unifier of subject and observer, where my art dwells.