Call To Care

Upon beginning an internship at a community schools for the arts, I was full of excitement to work with children, to share new art mediums and creative time with them. However, my primary responsibility, or perhaps the most impactful one, was to water the pianos in the school. They were old and used humidifiers to keep the wood from frailing. Instead of teaching, I was tending to these instruments. During my own studio classes, I was exploring oil paints, creating narrative pieces with a heavy impasto or thinning paints to make works as abstract as my creative intention. I acquired a collection of experimental canvases, pretty enough to keep, but empty enough to resent. Still I hung them between the bedrooms I lived in during the early 2020s, decorating the walls and reminding myself that I paint. They collected more dust than thought, until one was placed behind a shelf holding a potted pothos. I was in a stage of propagating plants feverishly, fascinated with roots, both of my plants and of my sense of home. I began to realize that my colorful canvases, playing with the ideas of vast, unreal landscapes, were my pianos. Old instruments that if tended to, could create life again. I began stitching ceramic vessels into canvas to remind myself to care for the persistent growth of the life I was creating. These abstract pieces became and become my Call To Care.

Dusk

oil, ceramic, and various tillandsia on canvas · 50 x 70 cm · 2026

Winter Again

oil, ceramic, and heptapleurum arboricola on canvas · 20 x 24 " · 2025

With While Without

oil, ceramic, and tillandsia on canvas · 2024

By The Sea

oil, ceramic, and pathos on canvas · 2024

Hay

oil, ceramic, and chlorophytum comosum on canvas · 11 x 14 " · 2022

Sky Step Scraps

oil, ceramic, and chlorophytum comosum on canvas · 2022

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