Connections

3/28/2026

After a while, dead trees started haunting my dreams. There are so many and they stand for so long. They become silent testimonies of what was and reminders of how casually they may be destroyed. I’ve seen forests in California and Oregon that were destroyed by fire, and I’ve seen those lands come back, not the same, but in a transformed way.

Years. It takes years. The title of this show – Years By the Creek – refers to the years. I’ve just started the journey on Koshkonong Creek, but these trees, this place, this creek, have been here for years and will still be here for much longer than I can enjoy it. “The Land Remembers” by Ben Logan is a favorite book, and I love thinking that to myself as I roam the woods and marshes – the land does remember.
There will be many more dead tree paintings in the future, but these are some in this collection.
“Connections” was painted in a sort of fever dream; I have no other way to describe it. I knew what I saw in my dreams, I remembered what I saw in the fields, and it all morphed and merged and came forth from my paintbrush onto this canvas. Painting in oil allows for that sort of evolution: as the paint flows, so can my thoughts. Mostly those thoughts were about connections and how they are never truly broken, and how mistaken we are if we believe we are not connected.

"Connections" Oil on canvas, 16 x 20

This is why I paint. It’s not perfect, it’s never complete, but it is what lies deep inside me, and I am grateful to be offered the opportunity to share it with the world. It’s how I make connections.