Moving to new homes and traveling often as an adult has made places especially meaningful to me. Creating art from what I see helps me connect with and understand each place I visit or move to. When arriving at a new place, I’ve familiarized myself with my surroundings by walking, riding public transit, or visiting nearby towns, always looking for artistic inspiration.

Currently, I’ve lived in the same state and in the same home longer than ever before. This stability has made me notice the changes in seasons and the natural world more closely. There is a time of the year when shadows get richer, light turns golden, flowers bloom, or birds return from migration. It also gives me a chance to include local history, consider the stories behind landmarks, and add my own connection to my home state in the work I create.

In my work, I focus on homes, public landmarks, and human-altered landscapes. I always start by drawing, either from life or from photos, using graphite, colored pencil, gouache, or watercolor. Drawing helps me figure out the composition, study color and light, and see if I’m interested in a subject. I often paint outdoors to connect more with a place, then use those painted sketches, color studies, and photos as references for larger oil paintings or prints in my studio.

Mixing and choosing colors is my favorite part of the process. I like looking at a scene and deciding which colors will best represent a mossy rock, a roof bathed in sunshine, or a white building in shadow. Sometimes I layer thin glazes of oil paint to let the colors shine through, or I make prints with sharp lines or rough textures.

Absence is something I think about often in my work. When I come across a space, I like to notice the marks that show something used to be there and wonder why things changed and how the place is different now. This idea appears in my art through the absence of a figure, or mentions of a river that isn’t shown in the painting.

In my work, my goal is to inspire people to see their surroundings and home with new curiosity and ask questions about how things came to be. By focusing on absence, change, and the marks left by time or people, I hope my art helps others build a deeper, more thoughtful connection to place.