Life and death and Life again, to die is to Live again:

This piece is about how even in death our life force will go on to feed something else.  Energy cannot be created or destroyed and I was meditating on the circles of life.  Even in death you have an impact; in life and death we feed others, nurture and help to grow, and our legacy carries far and wide.  A raccoon is eating the foot of a deceased person, ants are nourishing their colony from his decaying flesh, a  bird is using his hair for a nest for it’s young, a lotus (a flower known to grow even in some of the worst conditions) is sprouting out of his chest, a bee is pollinating that flower.  Life goes on even when we are gone.  What makes us alive?  Is it the air in our lungs or the life force that carries us?  If it is the life force, then even in death we go on.  This piece is a meditation on that.

Outgrow your pot:

Another in my series on growth; a reflection on how things that once provided for us often end up suffocating us.  A pot you were planted in that helped you grow will eventually be the same thing that makes you wilt.  Replanting yourself is painful but necessary if you want to thrive.  This piece is a combination of paper mache and acrylic paint; the enlarged flower coming off the canvas at the viewer.

Comfort is the Enemy of Change:

This mural is about how change is the only constant in life and we must change to progress in life. It also shows how disconnected we are from the natural world and how comfortable we are accepting this disconnect.  Left to right there is a sunflower busting out of a brick wall representing life breaking through regardless of the circumstance it has to grow in, the wall at the top has human heads made out of brick representing man-made concepts.  Above is a nighttime sky next to a sunrise or sunset, on the brick wall is the title; comfort is glittery but empty because it has no substance and is purely a manmade concept because life is formless like the figure next to it, a buddha inspired by DiVinci’s study of man representing the different forms of enlightenment and how we must always be formless and adaptable.  There is a tornado with formulas and other manmade ideas like time, letters, and words swirling in it, which are all things we created to make sense of the natural world but ultimately nature can shake up our understanding at any point.  In total there are 4 sunrises/sunsets which represent the daily ending and beginning as life is constantly cycling in big and small ways. There is a tree of life made in the shape of a man and woman intertwined; each branch bearing different fruit to represent the different things that nourish and foster life, each season and element and skin  tone represented between.  Below is the world and in the roots are cave paintings which represent evolution and the natural world, the roots of humanity forming culture and art.  On the far right there is a winding road, a timeline, that starts among building blocks that represent the dark and light and how you cannot understand light without knowing dark and vice versa.  The road leads between black and white squares which represents balance into the grey of uncertainty. There are three heads which represent the stages of understanding; one suffering with bleeding eyes, nose and mouth which is seeking internal understanding, one with its third eye closed but eyes open observing the world but not having ultimate understanding, and one with its third eye open, enlightened and open to all of the universe.  There is a set of eyes looking through patches of color, all eye colors being represented in the irises; you cannot see beneath the surface before you go below the surface. Below is a monkey in a suit, one hand on cash and one holding a banana representing how we are natural beings but work in a system where we are disconnected from all things natural and need to work to get what we used to be able to reap and harvest ourselves.  Below him is a gradient of skintones to represent all of humanity and finally a city scape with a galaxy to show where our cultures are contained; in manmade cities but ultimately all floating in space.  This is accompanied by the scales of justice because there is a balance in the universe we live within and though we create things like cities and palaces and monuments we have no say on that balance.  This piece is about the mysteries of the universe and how we live in it and try to make sense of it but ultimately if we get comfortable in the surface things in life we cannot tap into the bigger picture.  

Water Growth:

With patience comes understanding and through a storm comes nourishment and growth.  Different storms reap different forms of growth.  When you plant a seed it takes time to develop, and even when it develops you have to be patient to see it blossom.  That blossom is the fruit of struggle; the beauty that came from a storm.  

Growth spiral:

When growing we would like for it to go in a straight line, however it manifests more as a spiral.  The spiral, or Fibonacci sequence, is found in nature all over, the circle widens but keeps coming to the same spot.  Each time we cycle back on a concept or situation that challenges us our understanding is wider and we are wiser so the situation does not affect us the same way it used to even if we momentarily remember how we initially reacted to it; we are growing and forever expanding.