I sit with the plant and observe it for awhile. Where it lives, what it does. I put it down on paper. I don't capture it, that's not possible. The drawing is the struggle to tell about it, a terrible tension. It's purely gestural. I want to show that specific plant or tree or bush in that moment, in that point of its life. And mine. But it's not photographic. It's the feeling of the plant and what I'm feeling together. We have a little relationship.

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I swoon over a long branch which changes direction at each juncture of growth. I hear birdsong or the snap of a twig. Fragrances waft in and out. I'm a part of this scene for two hours, nature includes me without hesitation. I also create imagery that reflects my reverence for the natural environment.

 

My homage to the Whitebark Pine “Ghost Trees” from my artist-in-residency at Crater Lake National Park, fall 2010, documents the disappearing pines, victims of climate change, bark beetles, pine rust, reduction in snowfall and the departure of Clark’s nutcrackers which are primarily responsible for the dissemination of their seeds.