I grew up in a house surrounded by trees planted by the previous owners.This “inherited garden” would have a strong effect on my life as a visual artist many years later. I started as a figurative artist in New York City but after moving to a town in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado I found myself walking down rural paths instead of urban sidewalks surrounded by forests of aspens and pine trees and they became the new subject for my paintings. 

Through observational drawing and painting I grew more familiar with the trees and I started to become curious about their ecosystem and the relationship between the trees and soil. This led me to research the subterranean world beneath the forest floor which resulted in a series of abstract works on paper titled Blowdown depicting the invisible world of the mycorrhizal network of fungi. Learning about transpiration, the process of water movement through a plant, I began to work on a new series, Rivers Feed the Trees. 

In this work I am addressing the extreme drought we have been experiencing in the southwestern United States by re-watering the landscape in historic topographic maps painting all the rivers, arroyos and dry washes the color blue. The aspen trees in the work are surrounded by land now teeming with water. My aim in creating these visual images that for me are akin to an indigenous rain dance in which the participants pray for rain, is to create a consciousness in the viewer of the vital role that water plays in our lives.