I love to immerse myself in the natural environment near my home by the Potomac River in the Eastern panhandle of West Virginia. I am the lady that carries binoculars and a ten-foot camera lens down to the marsh just in case. The closer I look, the more beauty I uncover. Sometimes I am not sure whether I am an artist or a scientist. My artworks are “studies” and they uncover the lives and patterns and personalities of the organisms, the individuals, whom I seek to portray. It is my wish to share the intimacies I observe, the hidden iridescence of a starling’s feather, the unflinching gaze of a red-shouldered hawk. For me, creating art that exalts the natural world is my way of calling attention to this precious resource we call life on this Earth. 

And yet I also find much beauty in the darkness and the decay. As the seasons march on, the leaves wither to skeletons, and I crave the palette of a raven’s wing. In this way, art and nature are healing. They allow me to access and process the full range of what it is to be alive and human, part of which is an awareness of our temporality.