I've always been fascinated by weather and clouds, drawing them constantly as a kid, trying to get the right level of fluffy, but I never thought of the violence that clouds can also contain and how they obscure our surroundings. I wanted to pull these features of clouds out, making three series: various forms clouds may take (e.g., a cloud, rain cloud, thunderstorm, snow, etc.), clouds producing rain, and thunderstorms.

Trees and plants represent growth and life for me, as well as knowledge and learning. The first tree I made was an apple tree, representing the tree of knowledge with a golden apple hanging from one of the branches. From there I tried different trees (usually deciding what type of tree it is after completing it), and other types of plants, such as dandelions, cactuses, and more.

I believe that ideas come from all around us and that each of us is, in our own way, an idea generator. These ideas start out as neutral lightbulbs, but then can either become good idea balloons or bad idea weights. And sometimes our bad ideas can take over and turn into the worst ideas possible, especially when bad ideas just keep compounding upon one another - these become worst idea nooses.

After playing around with pastels and some paint, I decided to dive deeper into the relationship of color and texture. I used acrylic and oil-based paints of different sheens together to see how they interacted on the canvas. Then to create more texture in certain pieces I added staples not only to create mountains and valleys, but also to tear through the layers of paint to show what is beneath. I had a lot of fun making these and seeing what would unfold since I never knew what the finished piece would look like.

Everyone has their own views about our country and the world right now and these are just some of mine for you to interpret as you will. None speak of anyone specifically or to a specific party, but rather the general sentiments of the country since COVID-19.