As an encaustic artist, I am keenly attuned to the bond between art and nature; honeybees produce the wax I use for my encaustic paint. But there are other reasons that I explore natural history and environmental issues through my artwork: my formative years involved a substantial amount of time surrounded by and exploring nature.

Those childhood roots in the natural world stimulated my personal, political, and aesthetic concern with our current ecological challenges. Concerned about all aspects of the environment, I find myself responding with increasing alarm to intensive farming and urbanization, pesticide use, introduced species, and other triggers of climate change. Consequently, my artwork places a particular focus on the decline of pollinators and other insects due to the loss and destruction of their habitats. Insects serve very important roles to humans and our environment, supporting the food web, pollinating plants, disposing of waste, and cycling nutrients.

I use my curiosity about these ecological interconnections to create paintings and installations that draw attention to our environmental crises. Through images of bees, honeycombs, dragonflies, moths, and other flora and fauna, I put my encaustic materials to emphatic use—these pieces not only portray a threatened world, but they also call attention to the fact that the very medium of encaustic cannot exist without the survival of bees. By portraying the cycles of life, death, and impermanence in my work, I hope to raise awareness about environmental issues, inviting my audience to see nature not as a backdrop but as a vital element of our existence.