Works on Paper
Wicomico
Retreat on the River
In May 2026, I spent a month in Virginia’s Northern Neck area, part of the Chesapeake Bay coastline. I found myself in a place overlooking an estuary called the Great Wicomico River. The name comes from the Algonquian phrase "wicko mekee," meaning "a place where houses are built." Wicomico also refers to the people who originally inhabited the area, who are said to have been first to encounter Captain John Smith. It is a word that began to have personal meaning for me as I spent time with on the shoreline, finding rest and refuge in this place of calm resilience and beauty. As each day passed, and I began to recover a sense of connection with nature and with myself through painting and drawing. Getting to know the subtle colors and rhythms of life in this small part of the river, I started to ask, what has nature built here? What beings know this as home?
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Gifts from the Wind
I approached this work with the process that I have developed over the years—looking, listening, sketching, photographing on my walks, or simply sitting in silence, taking it all in. I then started to gather the source material I wanted to work with. As I began these visual investigations through paint and paper, something started to shift. As often happens, when you interact with nature, nature comes out to play. I noticed I was no longer needing to seek out elements to include in these works - they were literally showing up at my feet. There would be a gust of wind, and I would look down and notice what had just been blown my way—leaves with vibrant pattens and colors, a set of moth wings, a pattern on the water.
A Collaboration with Nature
This back and forth with the breezes of the Wicomoco became an adventure of daily discovery. I woke up each morning wondering what the wind would bring. In allowing myself to be guided by curiosity and a sense of openness to whatever nature wanted to show me, the work became more than a creative process. It was a collaboration, a building of relationship.
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Reflection and Gratitude
I am no stranger to gifts from the Wicomico. A few years back, a snake had left its skin on a tree near the front porch. My friends who own the property passed it on to me, and the patterns of the shedded skin showed up in my Meditations series. But still I was surprised by the generosity the river would show me once I had some extended time there. It’s important for me to highlight this aspect of the work because it brings attention to the fact that nature is giving us these gifts every moment of every day--we need only choose to acknowledge them. Our hearts beat faithfully second by second. The sun gives us life in the midst of infinite darkness. Our food, our breath, our very existence is a gift from nature. We, ourselves, are a gift from the wind.
In this sense, it is not the works themselves that are important here, but the relationships they represent - our relationship to the land we are standing on, as well as all the aspects of nature in relation to one another. It is the ways we endeavor to understand our place in the interconnectedness of all things, whether that be through art or some other means. In the end, discovery of nature is discovery of ourselves.
