New paintings in progress

Many of us look toward the new year as an opportunity to undertake a new resolution. We’ve all heard the phrase, "New Year, New You,” which is a notion that a “new” version of you will set you on track for a greatness that has previously been beyond your reach.

While this idea can be motivational and forward moving, it also robs us of the precious opportunity to accept who we are. 

Consider that greatness is alive and vibrant within you right now.  One of the many things this past year has revealed to me is the importance of learning how to be at home inside the person I am today — in mind and body - and it’s actually an unlearning process! And a difficult one, at that. What if perfection IS hanging out in sweatpants and leaving piles of laundry on the floor while binge-watching “Survivor?"

I want to understand what the paintings are that honor the undoing process of cultural norms that shame us and separate us from each other. With remarkable regularity across human cultures, water has been used to communicate the sacred value of life; the spiritual dimension of purification, protection, and healing; and the profound meaning of suffering and redemption in human life. Water connects us to all living things. Water is essential to all living things. 

Limited Edition prints of the body held in bliss available in March 2021

For years, I carried a quiet shame about painting water. So many artists have turned to it before — shouldn’t I be searching for something entirely new? I tried to become a different kind of painter. I questioned my instincts. I used my devotion to water as proof that I wasn’t original enough, bold enough, good enough.

But eventually I stopped resisting what kept returning.

The unrest of 2020 clarified something for me. I began to understand how to paint water not as scenery, but as metaphor — as a space for hope, healing, and transformation. I returned to images of dissolving, fissured, luminous figures suspended in currents of color. In painting them, I could see the creative spirit threading itself through rupture and renewal, always searching for meaning and connection.

This month, I’m beginning a new body of work that moves even deeper into the language of healing and gentleness. These paintings ask how we might hold ourselves more tenderly. They explore self-love, inner steadiness, and the quiet power of becoming.

My hope is that within these images you might find space for your own precious, singular self — a place to return to center, and from there, to step back into the world as a conscious co-creator in this time of reimagining and rebirth.

Fresh three-dimensional resin layered paintings in progress

What would it look like to live in a way that nourishes our wholeness and strengthens our connection to the world around us? What does harmony with ourselves and with one another actually require of us? And how can creative work that participates in addressing structural racism and inequality?

I believe one beginning is this: to see and accept who we are with honesty, to practice gratitude with intention, and to surrender into forgiveness — not as passivity, but as clarity. From that grounded place, we act.

Can we grow into a post-Covid world while also committing to dismantling structural racism? Can that evolution be steady, patient, and enduring?

Lasting change does not arrive overnight. But it also will not be strengthened by turning our fragmentation against ourselves or each other. Real transformation asks for courage and gentleness at once — a willingness to stay in the work, together.