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the job of the artist is to deepen the mystery

– francis bacon

NEST PAINTINGS

BREAKTHROUGH –  This 4 ‘ x 4’ painting of a ground nest (spotted Towhee) was part of the juried Fine Arts Show for the 2023 Anacortes Arts Festival. Available for purchase, $1800.

My work has been shown in
  • Santa Fe, New Mexico
  • Seattle, Washington
  • Dallas, Texas
  • Anacortes, Washington
  • Lopez Island, Washington
  • Museum of Northwest Art
  • Santa Cruz, California

I became fascinated with birds nests in the 1990s as a powerful metaphor for creation.

The birds would use the blowdown of storms to weave a vessel for something new to come into being. After the “winds of change” had brought chaos and turbulence, the birds would pick up the pieces — the deadwood, what was broken – and turn it into something life-affirming.

Since then, I have painted hundreds and hundreds of nests. My intention with the paintings is to help people mark a transformation in their lives: a birth, betrothal, a new home, a transition or threshold of some kind. They can also be used to symbolize a Dream that the soul has yet to bring to life.

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FIELD NOTES

This new series spotlights elements of nature found in the Pacific Northwest.

PRINTS

SOLD WORK 

sampling of sold works, available as prints

 

HOW I BECAME A “REAL” ARTIST

 In the winter of 1996, I embarked on a pilgrimage to the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, and the place where I was born.
I stood in the world’s largest gypsum sand field, where the dunes drift over 275 square miles, creating massive hills sculpted by the wind’s hand: smooth on one side, ridged like waves on the other. Tall clusters of creamy flowers, encircled by the spiked yucca leaves, poked the cobalt sky. In between the mounds, troughs and indentations called “slacks” create an other-worldly landscape. White Sands National Monument seemed like a sacred portal, so I went there to pray.

I shimmied down into a 15-foot slack and lay my body against the cool sand. My plea was for help to become an artist, which ordinarily is not a mystery—paint and sell is basically how it goes. Of course I did not want to be a regular artist. I wanted my paintings to be like a prayer, a thread connecting the seen and the unseen worlds.  I wanted to infuse them with a sacredness, like old-ways medicine or magic, to be a milestone on someone’s life journey.

Admittedly, saying prayers in a slack is not considered the most direct route to becoming an artist.

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