As a child, I would wander the woods for hours, stopping to look closely at the littlest things. I created spaces high up in trees to take refuge in. At my family’s yearly camp site, I once spent days, collecting moss and lining the spaces between the roots of a huge tree that created a natural shelf. I would nap there in my moss bed by the stream, held by nature. It is in nature that I felt a safety that I could not find anywhere else.

There is something about the quiet wonder of nature. The hidden cocoons, eggs, nests, burrows… that hidden growth and transformation, the fragile strength of this constant cycle of birth and decay.

How something can build a protective shell around itself in order to enter its most fragile and vulnerable state and emerge absolutely transformed. How a snake, in its shedding, embraces blindness in order to further grow.

I understand that. I feel that deep within my bones. That need to fully embrace the not knowing, the vulnerability, the deepest knowledge that in order to grow into what is coming next, I must give up what I was.

I bought my first home about two years ago. Without even recognizing it at first, I have been on this non-stop mission to put things in place to create that protective cocoon. That space that will allow me to transform, shedding what no longer serves in my growth. Outdoor benches are tucked into secluded spots and meditative rooms have been created. These places allow me to enter deep internal spaces, where reflection can occur, and new ideas can germinate and begin to grow.

Within my art, I also began to create nests, to explore those places of protection for growth and transformation. This may seem like a new direction for me artistically, but it is something I have been doing in some way or another since I was child.