Educational Collaboration with The Hotchkiss School
October 2025- August 2027 in Lakeville, Connecticut.
Ten selected 6”x8” and 8”x10” woodblock prints enlarged for wall installation.
Highlight of an alumni artist.
A person looks.
The blossom looks back.
Plain heart sees into plain heart.
-Sun Bu-er, 12th century Zen poet
This small poem conveys the axis around which my life and artistic practice turn: curiosity, awe, empathy, and simple true connections in unexpected places.
Plain heart sees into plain heart.
Hopefully, we can find that connection today with another human being, and then with a standing tree, a flying bird, or a twisting leaf on its way to the ground. When we can find this, and feel it, we are family. We are inextricably bound. The flower and I, the tree and I, the soil, the sky, the water and I…we are connected. One family. One home.
In my teens, I thrived in the stimulating Hotchkiss community as a student, a runner, a swimmer, a cyclist, a pianist and a photographer. The rambling woods and meadows surrounding the school became my second home. This is where I first heard the booming of ice. This is where I first saw the running of fish. This is where I found the pulse and majesty of life beyond the confines of the walls.
“Nature is not a place to visit.
It is home.”
-Gary Snyder, American poet philosopher & essayist
Slowing Down. Paying Attention. Being Still.
These pieces are about a certain quality of attention, a certain way of listening, a certain way of being in relationship with the lives before and beside me. I slow down. I pay attention. I am still. Each woodblock print here is a result of a specific and intimate encounter with a plant, an animal, or a place. By interacting with the living landscape this way, I have transformed my experience of community and family. I have a relationship with bears that is different now. I have a relationship with the burned forest that is different now. The bear, lynx, hawk owl, heron, lakes, rivers and skies are my neighbors and my relations, and I owe them my best.
And what about you? Who are your neighbors?
I am an artist, naturalist and educator, surrounded by the wild earth in Missoula, MT. Intensely curious and introspective by nature, I engage with my community deeply, noticing details that others simply pass by. My work is full of gratitude, honoring both the spirit and the vitality of wild landscapes.
Transforming field sketches into woodblock prints is a serious endeavor which takes hours of careful planning, sharpening of tools, carving, consideration and reflection. I cannot help but get to know my subject better as I go along choosing tools, marks, patterns, space and substance. Every carving is a discovery, not a formula. The work has its own life. I’m learning more and more to let it lead me. And so, we end where we began…
A person looks.
The blossom looks back.
Plain heart sees into plain heart.
-Sun Bu-er, 12th century Zen poet
I find the mission of Hotchkiss inspiring. The work is to embody the words below:
The Hotchkiss School seeks to inspire a diverse range of students who are committed to the betterment of self and society, and to cultivate in them at the highest standards of excellence
imagination and intellect,
openness and personal integrity,
empathy and responsible citizenship
that they may discover and fulfill their potential as individuals fully engaged in our world.