Artist Statement
I remember watching the news as the damage reports came in from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Indonesia region in late 2004. I remember being stunned, and then being confused by how something so big can happen with no warning. At that time, my high school community came together to raise money to help; we were not sure how it was going to help, but we wanted to help.
Flash forward to that following fall, I was now a freshmen in college, and Hurricane Katrina was approaching land. My new friend was from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and terrified for her family and friends back home. The news this time was blasting warnings and encouraging people to find safety --- but no one prepared for the devastating report when the skies cleared. I was still miles away, but the feelings were still there. How did it happen, how could we help? And even with the science, how could we not feel it?
Sometime around then, I read how there were reports of elephants running away before the tsunami crashed in 2004. It appeared to the scientists that animals seemed to have a sixth sense that we lacked; they were more in tune with Mother Nature than we were. This theory stayed with me as I experienced blizzards covering the northeast, when droughts became the new reality in the west, and how in 2005, they ran out of letters for hurricanes. It stayed with me when I read ways to help disaster victims in Chile, and it stayed with me when my flight was delayed due to smoke from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull eruption. How are all these things happening and we can only point to science as an answer? And if science is our answer, why the disaster, pain, and continuous suffering?
Sometime in early 2011, I was working at an art supply store and we received a couple stretched canvases that were torn. Instead of tossing them in the dumpster, my manger let me keep them. I joked with my co-worker that all you had to do was stitch up the canvas, and it would heal. Flashing back to memories as a child when I was sitting in a hospital getting stitches for a wound, the doctors said the same thing, “All you need is a few stitches and you’ll heal up to be as good as new.”
That spring, when tornadoes were hitting the Midwest with vengeance and the news began to fixate on flashing images of damaged houses, I started stitching that canvas. I began adding colors that echoed funnels hitting the ground, and using acrylic mediums that held the action of the twisters. In some way, I wanted the stitching I was making to magically stitch up the survivors and their lives. Even if it was far-fetched, it was something – and it was the birth of Tornado, the first Natural Disaster painting.
The Natural Disaster series is a collection of abstract paintings that were inspired by the rapid increase of disasters I saw over the last 10 years. Each painting represents a disaster through color, line action, and material. All the paintings were then ripped up and stitched, in order to symbolize how humanity and our Earth can heal in the days after. This collection is deliberately not outspoken about the scientific causes of Natural disasters or the climate change debate, but instead reveals how we can heal to move forward.
These paintings are abstract to represent the surreal feelings that take over when a disaster strikes. The moment an earthquake hits leaves no room for explanation, or something solid for the mind to understand. Instead, your reality becomes surreal and abstract. The colors were specifically chosen to be beautiful together in action. When avalanches fall, and a meteor shoots through the sky, it’s hard not to say, “it’s beautiful.” For that reason, I wanted this series to reflect that even in a disaster, nature is beautiful. Even in pain, there is beauty.
Many of the disasters, I have experienced first-hand: an earthquake in Virginia, hurricanes on the coast of North Carolina, and sandstorms and wildfires in the southwest just to name a few. When I did not have a first-hand experience to inspire me, I watched. With tsunamis gulping the pacific coast and volcanic eruptions across the globe, there was never a shortage of inspiration. Natural Disasters can happen at any moment, in any place, and on any scale. Each painting was a collaboration of my experience and the experience of our communities across the globe.
This series ends by beginning a conversation with the same questions I had in the beginning. How do we not sense a disaster coming, and are we adapting to the changing Earth? As a continuation, I am exploring these questions and more with a new body of work for each disaster. My goal is to create a conversation around the future of our changing earth, and how it is our new reality. The outcome I hope will inspire the future to look at our planet with love, and to embrace the perfect balance nature has. Even if it presents itself in a chaotic mess we call a natural disaster.
Flash forward to that following fall, I was now a freshmen in college, and Hurricane Katrina was approaching land. My new friend was from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and terrified for her family and friends back home. The news this time was blasting warnings and encouraging people to find safety --- but no one prepared for the devastating report when the skies cleared. I was still miles away, but the feelings were still there. How did it happen, how could we help? And even with the science, how could we not feel it?
Sometime around then, I read how there were reports of elephants running away before the tsunami crashed in 2004. It appeared to the scientists that animals seemed to have a sixth sense that we lacked; they were more in tune with Mother Nature than we were. This theory stayed with me as I experienced blizzards covering the northeast, when droughts became the new reality in the west, and how in 2005, they ran out of letters for hurricanes. It stayed with me when I read ways to help disaster victims in Chile, and it stayed with me when my flight was delayed due to smoke from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull eruption. How are all these things happening and we can only point to science as an answer? And if science is our answer, why the disaster, pain, and continuous suffering?
Sometime in early 2011, I was working at an art supply store and we received a couple stretched canvases that were torn. Instead of tossing them in the dumpster, my manger let me keep them. I joked with my co-worker that all you had to do was stitch up the canvas, and it would heal. Flashing back to memories as a child when I was sitting in a hospital getting stitches for a wound, the doctors said the same thing, “All you need is a few stitches and you’ll heal up to be as good as new.”
That spring, when tornadoes were hitting the Midwest with vengeance and the news began to fixate on flashing images of damaged houses, I started stitching that canvas. I began adding colors that echoed funnels hitting the ground, and using acrylic mediums that held the action of the twisters. In some way, I wanted the stitching I was making to magically stitch up the survivors and their lives. Even if it was far-fetched, it was something – and it was the birth of Tornado, the first Natural Disaster painting.
The Natural Disaster series is a collection of abstract paintings that were inspired by the rapid increase of disasters I saw over the last 10 years. Each painting represents a disaster through color, line action, and material. All the paintings were then ripped up and stitched, in order to symbolize how humanity and our Earth can heal in the days after. This collection is deliberately not outspoken about the scientific causes of Natural disasters or the climate change debate, but instead reveals how we can heal to move forward.
These paintings are abstract to represent the surreal feelings that take over when a disaster strikes. The moment an earthquake hits leaves no room for explanation, or something solid for the mind to understand. Instead, your reality becomes surreal and abstract. The colors were specifically chosen to be beautiful together in action. When avalanches fall, and a meteor shoots through the sky, it’s hard not to say, “it’s beautiful.” For that reason, I wanted this series to reflect that even in a disaster, nature is beautiful. Even in pain, there is beauty.
Many of the disasters, I have experienced first-hand: an earthquake in Virginia, hurricanes on the coast of North Carolina, and sandstorms and wildfires in the southwest just to name a few. When I did not have a first-hand experience to inspire me, I watched. With tsunamis gulping the pacific coast and volcanic eruptions across the globe, there was never a shortage of inspiration. Natural Disasters can happen at any moment, in any place, and on any scale. Each painting was a collaboration of my experience and the experience of our communities across the globe.
This series ends by beginning a conversation with the same questions I had in the beginning. How do we not sense a disaster coming, and are we adapting to the changing Earth? As a continuation, I am exploring these questions and more with a new body of work for each disaster. My goal is to create a conversation around the future of our changing earth, and how it is our new reality. The outcome I hope will inspire the future to look at our planet with love, and to embrace the perfect balance nature has. Even if it presents itself in a chaotic mess we call a natural disaster.
Why did you decide to produce a collection entirely based on natural disasters?
From the science behind them to the impact they have on humanity, Natural Disasters fascinate me. I am interested in how the Earth changes, how it is constantly moving and evolving… right beneath our noses. On a daily basis, we take for granted how much we rely on this planet to be exactly how it was yesterday. But it isn’t, and we forget that. Only to be reminded of it when an earthquake kills thousands of people, or when a volcanic eruption grounds travelers for days. We forget that our planet, in many ways, is alive and destructive. This concept originally inspired me but it was our reaction as a global community to the 2004 Indonesia earthquake/tsunami that moved me to make these specific paintings. I wanted to share that no matter how destructive these reminders can be, people are survivors and have the strength to heal and move forward. I wanted to create a body of work that helps inspire and create a conversation.
From the science behind them to the impact they have on humanity, Natural Disasters fascinate me. I am interested in how the Earth changes, how it is constantly moving and evolving… right beneath our noses. On a daily basis, we take for granted how much we rely on this planet to be exactly how it was yesterday. But it isn’t, and we forget that. Only to be reminded of it when an earthquake kills thousands of people, or when a volcanic eruption grounds travelers for days. We forget that our planet, in many ways, is alive and destructive. This concept originally inspired me but it was our reaction as a global community to the 2004 Indonesia earthquake/tsunami that moved me to make these specific paintings. I wanted to share that no matter how destructive these reminders can be, people are survivors and have the strength to heal and move forward. I wanted to create a body of work that helps inspire and create a conversation.
Is there a hidden or deeper meaning in your natural disaster paintings that spreads a message?
Each painting has stitches that are intended to convey the message that we are not victims after disasters, but survivors. We can heal and move forward – our lives can heal like wounds on our bodies. Rather than fighting to change the past, we can come together and move forward. These paintings show the strength humanity has to overcome loss, pain, and suffering. In addition to that, the paintings are intended to be colorful beautiful abstractions – to show that no matter how painful, how devastating a disaster is, ultimately, it is still beautiful and inspiring. Mother nature is in constant change and scientifically, no matter how much research we do, we cannot predict the moment nature makes its next move. Nature is so complex, so chaotic, that the only way to convey the beauty of it, is through how we see it in its abstract form. And this abstraction, no matter how awful it is seen through our eyes, it is part of the beautiful perfect circle of life on earth. That is why the paintings were abstract, colorful and bold, to echo the beauty mother nature has –even in a disaster. Also the stitches were hand sewn to bring in a sense of human touch.
Each painting has stitches that are intended to convey the message that we are not victims after disasters, but survivors. We can heal and move forward – our lives can heal like wounds on our bodies. Rather than fighting to change the past, we can come together and move forward. These paintings show the strength humanity has to overcome loss, pain, and suffering. In addition to that, the paintings are intended to be colorful beautiful abstractions – to show that no matter how painful, how devastating a disaster is, ultimately, it is still beautiful and inspiring. Mother nature is in constant change and scientifically, no matter how much research we do, we cannot predict the moment nature makes its next move. Nature is so complex, so chaotic, that the only way to convey the beauty of it, is through how we see it in its abstract form. And this abstraction, no matter how awful it is seen through our eyes, it is part of the beautiful perfect circle of life on earth. That is why the paintings were abstract, colorful and bold, to echo the beauty mother nature has –even in a disaster. Also the stitches were hand sewn to bring in a sense of human touch.
Have you ever visited a natural disaster zone and if you have what emotions did it evoke?
In the USA, I have traveled to places where severe hurricanes have previously hit, and the only emotion that I can really pinpoint as “overwhelming” at the time was vulnerable. Any second, the world can change, and that’s life.
When it comes to first hand encounters of natural disaster zones… well, I have experienced two earthquakes, dozens of hurricanes, and have been eerie close to wildfires. I drove through a sandstorm once, and too many blizzards one winter convinced me to go live in the desert. And now in the desert, I’m living in a drought. Fortunately, none of those situations have been life threatening or even scary compared to what just happened in Nepal. Nevertheless, these experiences give rise to fear, and in that moment, you are defenseless but weirdly accepting.
In the USA, I have traveled to places where severe hurricanes have previously hit, and the only emotion that I can really pinpoint as “overwhelming” at the time was vulnerable. Any second, the world can change, and that’s life.
When it comes to first hand encounters of natural disaster zones… well, I have experienced two earthquakes, dozens of hurricanes, and have been eerie close to wildfires. I drove through a sandstorm once, and too many blizzards one winter convinced me to go live in the desert. And now in the desert, I’m living in a drought. Fortunately, none of those situations have been life threatening or even scary compared to what just happened in Nepal. Nevertheless, these experiences give rise to fear, and in that moment, you are defenseless but weirdly accepting.
I want to explore the idea of natural disasters, but I am not sure how to start….I was wondering if you had any advice.
Nature is not flawed, it is beautiful just the way it is. Under the “flaws,” and any other negative projection people may put on Nature because it does not fit their expectations, it is and always will be beautiful.
When it comes to natural disasters and the flaws we see in them, the reality is actually the opposite. Every natural disaster is part of a larger cycle of order that is perfect. Without forest fires, for example, forests would be over grown leaving no sunlight for plants on the ground. And, without forest fires, an infestation of bugs will arise destroying the trees. The cycle of a forest needs fires every so often to reset the ecosystem; this is what makes them beautiful. They have a purpose and the order they are a part of is beautiful. The fact that nature is filled with everything having a reason or purpose is beautiful... It seems strange to say every natural disaster is a good thing, when hundreds of thousands of people have died from them in recent years. However, for every negative thing, there is a positive.
That is where I started when I first looked at Natural disasters as a source of inspiration. I was not inspired by the destruction, I was inspired by the beautiful impact each disaster had. I am inspired by the beauty of the cycle – and I am inspired by how people react to them.
My advice for you is to start with what draws you in and go deeper. Why nature? Why natural disasters? Why the flaws? Explore and find what about it brings joy to you. Keep your work about your experience, less about a concept or topic we are reminded every artwork needs to have. The work we create must begin inside of us. If it is routed in only what we think we are to explore or create, the art will reflect the lack of life you brought to it.
Nature is not flawed, it is beautiful just the way it is. Under the “flaws,” and any other negative projection people may put on Nature because it does not fit their expectations, it is and always will be beautiful.
When it comes to natural disasters and the flaws we see in them, the reality is actually the opposite. Every natural disaster is part of a larger cycle of order that is perfect. Without forest fires, for example, forests would be over grown leaving no sunlight for plants on the ground. And, without forest fires, an infestation of bugs will arise destroying the trees. The cycle of a forest needs fires every so often to reset the ecosystem; this is what makes them beautiful. They have a purpose and the order they are a part of is beautiful. The fact that nature is filled with everything having a reason or purpose is beautiful... It seems strange to say every natural disaster is a good thing, when hundreds of thousands of people have died from them in recent years. However, for every negative thing, there is a positive.
That is where I started when I first looked at Natural disasters as a source of inspiration. I was not inspired by the destruction, I was inspired by the beautiful impact each disaster had. I am inspired by the beauty of the cycle – and I am inspired by how people react to them.
My advice for you is to start with what draws you in and go deeper. Why nature? Why natural disasters? Why the flaws? Explore and find what about it brings joy to you. Keep your work about your experience, less about a concept or topic we are reminded every artwork needs to have. The work we create must begin inside of us. If it is routed in only what we think we are to explore or create, the art will reflect the lack of life you brought to it.