Ghosts

I have been thinking about all of the plants and animals that live around us diligently working away unnoticed.It is as if they do not exist unless they somehow get in our way. It is a complex crowded ecosystem, reliant on the many. Beetles, spiders, pollinators, fungi...it goes on and on. In some respects it's probably a blessing that we aren't conscious of all of them all of the time. The eyelash mites come to mind.
I have been trying to listen, to look, to suspend judgement and fear just to take in as much as I am able to perceive. The closer I look, the more I see. When I was teaching one of my projects was for students to take two square feet of a natural area and catalog everything there. It was amazing to learn how much goes on in that small of a space. If we had investigated what was happening underneath the surface of the soil, we would have found a complex universe.

My new Ghost series is about these selfless workers and fellow travelers that I have discovered living around me. It all began with a Green Darner Dragonfly that I found dead and perfectly preserved at my feet on my walk out to my studio. I have not found the Oregon Spotted Frog because it has disappeared from my local habitat. I remember seeing them as a child, but now they are found in only a few remote places because of habitat loss.
The paintings are 20 x 16 on panels. I decided to hang them as a group and float them on the wall without frames. As the series grows I'll probably group them in different ways. I've been having a lot of fun with this project.