“The created world around us is wondrous…

Any moment we attend to it, feelings and thoughts are roused that take us out of ourselves, feelings and thoughts that seem very much like prayer.  These are so spontaneous and uncontrived, so authentic and unpretentious that there is little doubt we are in some deep communion with a reality beyond us, with gods – or God.”

Eugene Peterson, quoted from his sermon “The mountains skipped like rams”

Earth speaks of heaven, there is a bit of the Divine in all creation. My practice is founded upon the exploration of the sacred space I inhabit, and the deep communion that arises from an authentic experience with creation.  I am on a pilgrimage between two homes – the home of my childhood spent on a mountain in Southwest Virginia and the heavenly home where I will come to rest. In order to wander between the two with intention, I am compelled to meditate upon moments – a long range view enveloped by clouds, gathering dusk in the foothills, a trail walked with chosen company. These visual meditations become abstracted iterations of place and time, inviting the viewer to reflect on their own unique pilgrimage.

Using images and plein air studies from my travels to the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia as a catalyst, I rely on a process that is both intuitive and experimental, exploring and manipulating the limits of each medium. The first wash of paint is both spontaneous and chaotic giving rise to gestural marks and abstraction.  Sometimes collaged elements build layers, allowing for improvisation and dissonance.  Fields of color move and shift until the relationship between the layers forms a resolved narrative. 

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