The bitterroot holds time in its flesh—layers of dormancy and return, the way paint holds layers of application and removal. I work the surface building up, scraping back, letting the material find its own erosion. The Klamath people knew this plant as Kanidu (Bitterroot)—something that survives by hiding its life beneath the surface, waiting. My painting does the same. The land and I are one, and so is my tribal family and this root. I'm not illustrating a story; I'm participating in the same forces that shaped the hills and the hunger and the ceremonies of first harvest. The painting is the root, and the root is the painting—both made by pressure, time, and the need to return.