Description of Submitted Work

1. "CAN YOU HEAR IT TOO?" — Yellow-headed, Red-winged, Tri-colored & Brewer's Blackbirds 40×60, gouache on pH-treated upcycled tea bags

This large-scale work depicts four blackbird species in a single composition — a celebration of the mixed-species flocks that gather along Pacific Flyway wetlands during migration. Blackbird aggregations like these depend on a shrinking network of marshes and seasonal wetlands, stopover habitats under increasing pressure from drought and habitat loss. The scale of the piece is intentional: to stand before it is to feel the noise and collective energy of a flock in a way a smaller work cannot achieve. Currently on exhibit at Art on First Gallery, Ashland, Oregon.

2. "Overcoming all that lies ahead" — White-faced Ibis 24×36, gouache on pH-treated upcycled tea bags

This portrait was inspired by a specific bird — an individual White-faced Ibis I cared for during a botulism outbreak response at Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge, one of the most critical migratory stopover habitats on the Pacific Flyway. What struck me about this bird was its history written in its body: it had a healed fracture of the tibiotarsus that had set with a twenty-degree outward rotation, meaning it walked with an awkward, swinging gait. And yet its keel score — the measure of a bird's overall body condition — told the story of an animal that had been thriving. It had survived a significant injury, healed without intervention, and continued to navigate its migratory life successfully, until botulism brought it in. That it was found, treated, and ultimately released felt like a small miracle. This bird is what I mean when I say individual animals have lives worth knowing — full of history, adaptation, and a resilience that humbles me. Currently on exhibit at Art on First Gallery, Ashland, Oregon.

3. "Carried Home with Every Wingbeat" — Long-billed Curlews 24×36, gouache on pH-treated upcycled tea bags

Long-billed Curlews are a species of conservation concern, their grassland and wetland habitats fragmented across the West. This piece depicts two birds — migration as it often is, not solitary but collective, the flock as a living map. The title is about what migratory animals carry with them: not just fat reserves and magnetic memory, but something harder to name — an inherited knowledge of place. Currently on exhibit at Art on First Gallery, Ashland, Oregon.

4. "Mapping the heart you know" — Common Raven 24×36, gouache on pH-treated upcycled tea bags

Ravens are among the most intelligent and place-attuned birds I have encountered in years of wildlife rehabilitation work, including through my ongoing work with Badger Run Wildlife Rehab in Southern Oregon. The topographical map incorporated into this piece's background is of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument — the landscape where I grew up — making this a portrait of both a species and a place. The inspiration came from an encounter in Death Valley, where a raven followed my husband and me up a side canyon, reading us carefully before communicating, with unmistakable intent, that it wanted water. I poured some into a rock crevice and backed away; it drank, offered a few knocking calls, and flew off. I had long wondered how such a large bird finds water in an arid landscape. It had never occurred to me that it would simply ask.

5. "Where time cannot find you" — Belted Kingfisher 18×36, gouache on pH-treated upcycled tea bags

This piece was painted for my father, who is in his eighties. He is a fly fisherman and avid birder who taught me to love birds — a gift that became my life's work. He has always said, only half joking, that catch-and-release fishing is simply an excuse to stand in a river all day and wait for a kingfisher to pass, to hear its rattling call. The title is his — the way time stops when you are knee-deep in a cold river, fully present, waiting for that sound. I will not always have him. But I know that call will hold him for me, in every river, for the rest of my life.

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“He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”

―Saint Francis of Assisi

Description of Submitted Work

“He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”