PAINT

ARTIST STATEMENT

I make art to discover what remains after everything else falls away.

This first came to me through something small.

I used to clip a tree branch full of fuchsia flowers and place it in water. The flowers were large, waxy, fragrant, and alive with color. Then the petals would fall, and the branch would bloom again. With each return, the flowers became smaller, softer, and lighter, as if the branch was giving away what it had left. Most would rebloom two or three times before they passed.

My neighbor, Stephanie, was struggling, and I could feel that she needed a kind of love she was not receiving. After she died, I kept thinking about the care I wished I had known how to give her.

I chose one of those branches and named it after her. Each morning, I gave it fresh water. I asked how it was doing. I talked to it, sang to it, and told it I loved it.

This branch rebloomed seven times. With each return, the flowers became smaller, lighter, and more delicate, until the last one came back as the tiniest luminous white flower I had ever seen. It felt so pure. It felt like truth. And it stayed with me longer than any of the others, as if it didn’t want to let go.

This experience changed the way I see and the way I make art. Since then, I’ve found myself seeking what is easily overlooked, because what wants to be seen is often hidden in the things most people pass by.