The hidden works
Three bodies of artwork that have emerged through my art practice
The work that flows
While the 500 project has taken up the majority of my time over the last 5 years, there was a time before the project in which I was creating art, and there’s also been work that I’ve created on the side as the project has been ongoing.
The work I did before the 500 project was all for myself, it was work I did for no other reason than to explore figures and feelings and also to have some things to add color to the walls of my home.
The work I’ve done on the side since the 500 has been more experimental, led by a curiosity and a need to break away from the constraints of the small, 8 in. x 10 in. canvases I typically work on.
2016
The first thing I’ll show you isn’t something I’d categorize into a ‘series,’ although it loosely fits. It’s the sketch book I kept during my first year of living abroad, in 2016. It was during a period of time when I really couldn’t afford to buy art supplies, and I wasn’t able to bring any of my old art supplies over with me from my previous life in the United States. I made the sketchbook out of basic printer paper, and filled it with drawings and collages made from found items—free magazines, brochures, pieces of paper material I found on the street.
That sketchbook and several others kept me grounded during this period of upheaval.
2017-2018: The period of Totems
In 2017, the excitement and buzz of my trans-Atlantic move had subsided, things were starting to settle down and I entered a period of deep reflection. That reflection also took me into a depression due to multiple factors—the great upheaval, making sense of my old life, realizing I had some wounds from the past that hadn’t healed, and feeling confusion about the decisions I had made. It was tough—the type of thing where I struggled to pick myself up every morning. I felt like I was in a deep fog.
But in 2017 I started getting involved in the local community a bit more. I was making new friends and connecting with people who really helped me on my journey. One of the things I did was join a meditation course that promised to help with stress and anxiety, it was led by a group of people from a local buddhist center.
The six-week course had a profound impact on me and helped me to unravel and transcend a multitude of things that had been haunting me from my past.
I found the symbolism of various buddhist images to be really helpful in my journey. This ancient religion opened my eyes to the fact that what I was experiencing wasn’t so unusual—if anything, the pains and grief I felt were actually universal and people throughout all of human history have not only faced these things, but overcome them and found peace. I committed to that journey of healing, there was nothing I wanted more than to have that fog dissipate.
As I went through that process, I started drawing and painting the symbols I found most helpful. It was also this journey that reignited an interest in my own Cherokee heritage. I learned universal truths through Buddhism that I knew I would find in the history and mythologies of the Cherokee, too. I felt that the Cherokee stories illustrated the connection between humans and nature a bit more explicitly than the Buddhist stories did.
For example, one of the stories that I loved was the story of Awi Usdi or Little Deer. This story is based during a time when humans had developed more advanced hunting methods with bows, arrows and other weapons. This led to humans to be more careless in their killing of animals, even though it had always been important to the Cherokee to maintain a careful balance between themselves and their natural environment.
In this story, after a failed attempt by a council of bears to scare the humans into thinking twice about being careless while hunting, a deer known as Awi Usdi (Little Deer), decided to take a different course of action to guide the humans. Awi Usdi appeared to humans in their dreams to remind them that they must show respect for the life they hunted, only taking what they need. If humans did not adhere to this agreement, those who hunted carelessly would be stricken with illness.
Deer feature in Buddhism as symbols of wisdom, harmony, skillfulness and tranquility. The symbol of the deer and its majestic presence never escapes me. I used to really enjoy seeing deer on long drives in Alabama, too. Often I’d drive through one of the state parks to find some beautiful deer roaming about.
Whilst reading up on Cherokee history and stories, I became interested in totem poles. Totem poles aren’t native to Cherokees, they are found more typically in native tribes from the Pacific coastal region (Cherokees were based in the south-east of the United States, nearer to the Atlantic).
There’s something really majestic about totem poles, so I took a stab at drawing one. I’d love to do something similar to this in the future… perhaps a series of tight, vertical canvases painted with totems. This drawing is actually really large, done on an MDF board with Sharpie, about 24 in. x 48 in. (60 cm x 120 cm).
I also loved the symbol of the elephant. Elephants are majestic, they represent wisom and strength. Looking at the elephant makes me feel grounded and reminds me to keep moving forward confidently. I drew two elephants around the same time, one that was more flat like the illustrations above, another that I did on a painted background to give it more depth.
Naturally, a few Buddhist figures appeared in my work. The main figure that I felt connected to was Green Tara, a female buddha who represents compassion.
The meditation practice that had the most profound impact on me was the Metta Bhavana or Loving-Kindness meditation. It is a meditation centered around compassion. In it, you consciously generate compassion for yourself and others. I was able to go deep on a lot of my pain and shower it in compassion through this practice. To this day, Green Tara graces my meditation space. I created a variation for Blue Tara also. Blue Tara is another buddhist figure that is more representative of protection and the removal of fear.
2018 - 2020: Pulse
The works created during this phase were all about transition and personal growth. After overcoming some initial hurdles thanks to my meditation practice, I felt like a new person. I call this series, “Pulse,” as it represents a new and emergent state of being both for me and my art.
It was during this period that I really began exploring abstract work. I threw away all of my paint brushes and tucked away my paint pens to keep myself from the temptation of wanting to create figures or have too much control. My only mission while working on these paintings was to connect with the materials and channel the energy that was flowing through me onto the canvas. I painted with my hands only.
This series will always hold a special place in my heart.
2022-2024: High Frequency
You’ll notice now a gap in time: From 2020 to 2022 I didn’t really complete any new works outside of the 500 project. During those years I was absorbed in my professional career as a product designer—I was upskilling and learning and practicing a lot of new things during those years.
In my free time I worked on the 500 project and was exploring other creative practices too like writing music, sewing, cermic pottery and learning to play the banjo! I loved the exploration, and all of those activities helped me to evolve in meaningful ways, but in 2022 I purchased a few more canvases to work on on the side and the series “High Frequency” emerged from there.
I call it “High Frequency” because that’s how life has felt during these years. 2022 was the year we emerged from the pandemic, it was the year I found myself ready to take on some bigger challenges like running my first marathon and buying a house.
In 2023 I renovated my house and was navigating leadership and management challenges at work. And here I am in 2024, much more settled in my home space but working in a high-octane atmosphere in my role as a Design and Research Manager at a late-stage American startup, training for my first ultra event in September, and conscientiously pursuing art with more commercial intent so that it can become my next career (once the company I work for IPOs, of course ✨).
The pieces in High Frequency capture the more exciting moments of my life, the fun I have in the gaps of all of the hard work, training and discipline my life has required. The works represent the way I’ve been experiencing the environments I’ve been in when at festivals, on holiday, rambling through city streets on a night-out and even the moments of joy when just dancing by myself at home.
Music is a more prominent theme in this series, but really it’s something that has influenced both the Pulse series and the 500 project. I love music—I love listening to it, singing along with it, dancing to it, even writing and making music. And when I make art, especially the abstract works, I feel like the finished works often look a bit like a musical score if it were abstracted and mixed with color. Every piece I make in the abstract has a certain resonance and beat to it that is no doubt influenced by the music I listen to in my every day life.
Uncovering the work
It wasn’t until recently when I was catalogging all of my artwork that I realized I had these three distinct bodies of work. I uploaded all of the images into a spreadsheet and as I was doing that, I began sorting and organizing them based on their style and theme… it was like reading a journal. All of these pieces fit neatly into different eras of my life, each that have a very distinct energy. And I love knowing that as I continue practicing art, those energies will continue to transmit right into the media I work with.
I’d love to know what you’ve been working on recently, and if you see similar patterns and themes in your own work whenever you look back?
Thank you so much for being here with me this week! Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet. I’ll write to you again next week with more insights on the state of the art ❤️
I enjoyed seeing the progression of your work overtime. It’s cool to see how some of your older pieces are informing your current work.