Protection Series 2024-2025

During this time of transitioning into storytelling, I found myself with a lot of extra time. I shifted my mind’s eye from looking outward to looking inward, searching for what to say and what story to tell.

It was the summer of 2024, and there was talk of a looming cicada infestation. The city prepared by putting up insect netting, mostly around young trees. I was skating past Lake Michigan when I saw a group of trees completely wrapped in this beautiful, translucent mesh. They looked like dresses.

John Singer Sargent had already been on my mind, and seeing those trees brought him to the forefront. As I looked through the reference photos I had taken, I remembered something he once said about his painting W. Graham Robertson: “The painting is the coat.” That stuck with me. It was a moment of realization that when you’re painting a portrait or a figure, you almost become a stylist or fashion designer.

It was an epiphanic moment. I knew these trees would be the perfect subject to paint, a homage to past artists and a nod to the beauty of the world around me.

Since I lived so close to this small grove, I decided to get my own netting and revisit the spot each season throughout the coming year, capturing how the light changed, how the earth shifted. Summer, fall, winter, and spring.

These moments of loose, organic brushstrokes and losing myself in beauty kept my painting hand fresh while giving me the mental clarity to discover what stories I wanted to tell and focus on in the coming months and years.