Through my kaleidoscope

There's actually a real leaf included in this artwork. During the time I made this painting, I spent a lot of time wandering around Bay Ridge, following the dead leaves drifting in the wind. I listened to the crunch, crunch, crunch under my feet. 

I made a habit of catching leaves mid-air, taking one or two and moving them to a ledge, pocketing a favorite to bring home, arranging leaves like words in a poem. I could say it was just a small thing, but it was also a big thing. I was experimenting with my freedom. 

I was teaching myself that I could do things for no other reason than I found it amusing or fun and that was good enough reasoning. I was teaching myself that sometimes, you don't need a reason. I was teaching myself that I was capable of making my own choices, no matter how "silly" or "strange" they appeared on the outside. I was teaching myself that it was okay to want more than survival mode. I was reminding myself of something integral to who I am: my playfulness, my imagination, my willingness to be my own person.

About the Love Letters to Mother Earth collection

What moves us toward protection and care if not love? In honoring and loving my natural self, my soul, I learn how to safeguard my tenderness and the magic that is mine to wield. And this love guides me toward the people and spaces where I feel free and valued as my true self.

My hope is that in honoring and loving wild lands, tender artists, our authentic selves, this mysterious and beautiful universe, and this magical and messy planet of ours, we will learn to safeguard what is precious and sacred in each other and this world. Standing under a canopy of towering trees is humbling, freeing, incomparably special. It’s precious. So are you and so am I and so is each river and forest and so is this planet.