In March of 2020 our vacation home in the Catskills became our full-time home. After 25 years of city living, suddenly I was conducting therapy sessions from my screened-in porch with the scent of lilac wafting in. The shifting color palette and ever-changing symphony of birdsong felt like a marvel. Fast forward to the following winter - I bought a few watercolors and began doodling flowers during phone sessions with patients. Four years and countless flowers later, these forms have morphed into shapes I no longer recognize. What’s surfaced is some impulse to capture the essence of each thing. This crystalized for me when a teacher said, “Don’t paint a tree, paint the feeling of a tree." Making art has become a way to celebrate whatever ineffable thing unites all living things and pushes them to grow and change. I feel myself as part of that system, moving into iterations I don’t yet know, all the while seeking to unearth some essential part. It’s my attempt to capture whatever feels like too much to bear - relentless beauty, the swiftness of seasons, and all the ways we are changed by magic forces that move through our lives. I never know what will come when beginning a painting. It’s a process of co-creation, using water or scribble to create marks and move from there. What emerges is partly choice and partly whatever comes through. I would like my life to be the same – a combination of intention and allowing, where new forms of beauty surprise and delight, and new ways of being are always right around the bend.