I've been asked to exhibit 40 paintings at the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor, MI. Titled, "The Mind Bloom," this exhibit runs from January 12 - March 24, 2019.

The UM Matthaei Botanical Gardens has been one of my favorite places to visit for as long as I can remember. It represents thriving life and possibility. I am thankful to have this exhibit of my work in a place that is so meaningful to me.

The paintings in this exhibit were made over the past couple of years. I worked on them just about every day, in the morning or at night. Over time, the confluence of ideas that the paintings and words represented became familiar and connected. Themes and interests repeated and were deepened through my daily exploration.

Titling the exhibit, “The Mind Bloom”, after a specific painting in the collection, seemed like the perfect expression of this work. Always inspired by nature, and combined with thought, memory, poetry, feeling—truly a bloom that is full of vigor and charged with all of the possibility of being alive every day.

View fullsize

University of Michigan
Matthaei Botanical Gardens
1800 N. Dixboro Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48105

The Mind Bloom Exhibit
January 12 – March 24, 2019
Daily 10 am - 4:30 pm
Wednesdays until 8 pm
Free admission

https://mbgna.umich.edu/event/the-mind-bloom/

 

Thank you for visiting! This is the beginning of this blog and my website—and I couldn’t be more excited.

My painting and writing start with my experience of the natural world and then leads inward and outward at the same time. The daily reading of the sky, the leaves on the trees, the behavior of birds, the lichen on a log, the flowers in bloom, the current of the river, the position of the planets, moon, and stars are the things that make me feel alive.

When I first learned about poets and poetry it was like finding out about a great secret. Poetry was confiding and beautiful and dangerous and scary. These people were experiencing the world, the people in their lives, memory, history, pain of all kinds—and love. They were giving it all the attention that it deserved. They were sharing it. It was messy and majestic. Art and artists were the same to me. A teacher of mine once called them ‘rescuers’, they could be depended upon to have already gone out ahead to find a safe spot. They were devoted to telling the truth—compelled to—even in the darkest moments of their lives.

I learned that the art of creating something made the indecipherable things in life beautiful. What it means to be human—a part of everything, but still alone. Seeing things as they are, yet still hopeful.