Psychedelia Summer

Concept

The semester I took The Sociology of War and Peace grounded and changed my artistic practice permanently. The professor guided us through hours of readings on propaganda, drone development, child soldiers, the CIA’s “black budget,” and so on. Despite being asked daily, this professor refused to share an opinion or issue any rulings of good or bad, for which I commend him. I was questioning my entire foundation of truth and the only way I could confront it was visually and abstractly - previously my work was figurative. I was confident I could create a balanced field of marks with black ink and up to two colors. Creating harmony was a survival mechanism to process the great psychological weight of the realities of war.

In the years since, I’ve expanded my process, palette, and theory. I’ve arrived at this - we make the medicine we most need to take. For me, that’s a call to be present and embodied increasingly often, and to see my inner landscapes laid out before me in ink, acrylic, collage, gouache, and graphite. Consistent themes are epistemology, the lyrical feeling of flying, ancestral remembrances, and what connection feels like. I draw heavily on botanical imagery and have experimented with my own botanical and tea-based inks. In plants, I find forms that evoke the numinous and transcendent presence of life. When I create, I’m feeling through what I most want to see exist in the world. Seeing art is allowing it to change you. Answers aren’t found easily, but slowly through consistent presence.

To engage in the artmaking process is to participate fully in the living system we are nested in. The idea of many nested wholes is from scholar and strategist Carol Sanford, whose radical ideas about how to lead a regenerative life have inspired me. Other major influences include the varied wisdoms of Audre Lorde, Conner Habib, Ursula Le Guin, Gordon White, and Prem Rawat.