As an artist, I aspire to explore the substantive aspects of my life. I want a ‘realness’ or authenticity in my work and I want the viewer to feel it. But how do I even define art? And why do I make it? Memories from early life, often involving nature, helped in finding some answers. Some of the details are faded, leaving me only with how I felt and how I was affected. These thoughts and feelings from childhood, the ones that have stuck with me, string together to form an inherent sense of self. A personal mythology that pushes and pulls me through life. This sense of self, the inner voice or consciousness that we all experience, can be called the human spirit. And I believe art is its reflection in the form of expression. My work represents my connection to this spirit and reflects a reawakening to it. Presented through both my physical and intangible relationships with my environment, my work takes the viewer on a personal journey of the self. Investigating what it truly means to be a human as part of, not separate from, the natural world.