In layers
Someday, if I am lucky, I will be old. I may not be able to travel or to use my body the way I do now. I may not even be able to paint.
What I will have is peace — the quiet honor of knowing I took my time here. That I chose to be present. That I stopped to witness beauty, to feel thankful for it, and to leave my share of it behind.
My grandmother started painting in her seventies. She painted completely, joyfully, with no need to be great. She was happy, and everyone loved her for it. That was the lesson: the making is the reward, not the result.
That is what I am really doing here: layers of life.
The joy lives in the craft
Painted by my own hand, from the first mark to the last.
Made slowly. Weeks, sometimes seasons.
Begun without a plan. The painting is found, not designed.
Made with the world, not just about it.
Every piece a reflection — and sometimes a fight.
The rough edges left where they fell.
One of one. Never repeated, not even by me.
Signed, dated, and remembered.
Made in Oregon. Formed in Costa Rica.
Featured in the second edition of Abstractics Magazine
Pacific Northwest Afternoon
Acrylic and mixed media · 30 × 20 × 1.5 in · 2025 · One of one
I photograph everything. Places, food, the light on a wall, paint splatters on the studio floor. My friends joke about it, and they're right to. It's just how I move through a day — catching things before they're gone.
When I first moved to Oregon, I kept driving the Columbia Gorge. The trees, the leaves, the mountains, even the colors of the cars going by — it all kept arranging itself into a palette that stayed with me long after the drive.
This painting began the way most of mine do when I'm out in the world: on my iPad, over a coffee, in the gap between meetings. That's my sketchbook now. Later it came home to canvas, and I built it up by hand in acrylic — slowly, until the afternoon didn't just look right; it felt like it was in the room.
I don't paint the view. I paint what the light leaves behind.
ABSTRACTICS: The Journal of Abstract and Nonrepresentational Art!
Seeing my work printed alongside so many incredible artists is such a pinch-me moment. Huge thanks to the team at ABSTRACTICS for including me in this edition!
After Fragonard
A reimagining of The Swing filtered through the color and climate of the Pacific Northwest.
28 × 40 × 1.5 - Mixed Media
A kind of prayer
I didn't set out to make a prayer. But somewhere in the layers—red over red, blue pushing up underneath—it started to feel like one. A reaching toward something I couldn't name.
24 × 36 × 1.5 - Acrylic on canvas
There is still beauty
24 × 36 × 1.5 - Acrylic on canvas
I started this day carrying a bit of nostalgia and a palette inspired by Impressionist gardens. Bringing that peaceful intention to life proved trickier than I thought, but that’s the beauty of it: the reward was never the final result, just the act of showing up to paint.
The hidden fox
Look closely. You're not alone in here.
28 × 40 × 1.5 - Acrylic on canvas • One of one
The Symphony
Everything at once — red, gold, blue, and those thin lines running through it like a melody you can follow across the whole canvas. Loud, layered, alive.
24 × 36 × 1.5 - Acrylic on canvas