So much of our time during COVID has been spent organizing and forcing an order to things to keep everyone safe and secure. Classrooms have been arranged with a hidden grid of social distanced norms. People have confined themselves in protective spaces.

Luckily during the pandemic my wife and I were able to counterbalance this energy by planting a native garden and letting it grow freely. We started out by sculpting the earth and arranging what had once been a flat plane of green grass into a set of mounds and swales planted with one thousand local seedlings of fifty species. As time passed, flowers began to bloom. As plants became more familiar, I learned that their wily growth patterns were beautiful in their unpredictability. They reminded me of the power of nature, and how it has the potential to adapt, survive and thrive in new environments.

Out of these experiences comes a new body of work. Sketches on my iPad have captured the essence of what I have observed, studied, and been inspired by in my own backyard. The digital drawings grew from being the seeds of my ideas into physical form as wood carvings by way of new technologies. To enhance their beauty and amplify their tactile one-of-a-kind quality, these reliefs are surfaced with encaustic paint, a hot mixture of beeswax, natural varnish derived from the sap of trees, and pure pigment used by the ancient Egyptians. Surfaces of wood have become luminous and textured, capable of referring more closely to the energy of the coneflowers, spiderworts, rattlesnake masters, and all the other unique species existing together in their new ecological setting out my back window.

As I mix new technologies for design and fabrication with time-tested traditional methods, my goal is to make more of these relief works in various sizes and to join some together into larger pieces. My wish is to create refreshing new art for a complex world that often feels too restrained and limiting.