NOTEBOOKS

Writings and works sampled from nearly two decades of Anna's exploration of right-relationship, and right use of energy/power. 

OVERVIEW

In 2003 I knew I was dedicating my life to understanding power, and how it can be accessed and activated.  In 2007 I was finishing my undergraduate studies in illustration and painting. My true studies were just beginning

Since 2010 I have studied expressions of power in individuals, and relationships. These studies have been self-directed in fields of psychology, indigenous energy medicine practices, 20+ years of relationship assessment with University of Virginia's Graduate Psychology department, various leadership trainings, authentic relating communication training, studies in masculine and feminine polarity and integration, leading conscious feminine and creation groups, and more.

During my course of study I documented my observations through oil paintings and drawings, understanding that this was the best way to embody the information, and learn how to teach it to other visual learners (studies show that over 65% of the population are visual learners. I believe this is a conservative number).

I interpreted power through a variety of lenses, from the blunt physical to the subtle energetic. I distilled the behaviors of power into poles of separation and connection, which can also be understood as navigating the fields of suffering and pleasure, though these do not map onto connection and separation as precisely or predictably as one might imagine. 

My paintings have served as a tool to document my personal processes. The chronology of my work becomes a trail of beacons marking my path thus far and the teachings I’ve collected along the way. ​

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2007 - 2010
INDUSTRIAL POWER

Theme: Separation & Imbalanced Power

• Power imbalance expressed as dominance and control.
• Abuse of relationship and resources. 
• Absence of recognition of the Other.
• Nonconsensual Harvest.

The most visually apparent expression of power on our earth is the industry that covers it. As I painted from on-site observations of power plants and photo documentation. I could feel the wounded and diseased domination-based power that runs and exists in our infrastructure. I became present to the contrasting experience of taking without consent vs. graciously accepting what is willingly given. While I was looking at environmental relationships, this felt uncomfortably familiar in human relationships. 

What I felt while painting the impact of industry upon our earth mirrors the feelings I have had when others have sought to dominate or suppress me in relationship.  When I was younger, these were feelings of loss, intimidation, and as though I were being asked to disappear, or rather, my agency asked to disappear while the resource of my body could remain, if useful. I felt tremendous anger, but only as anger is the loving protector of sadness and pain.  I felt violated, penetrated, and taken, without collaboration or consent. Today, when others seek to dominate me, I feel an appropriate disappointment, a tired boredom, and a healthy intolerance. 

​Clearly, this was a painful experience. While painting these manmade structures my truest intention was to a pursuit balanced power; a generative and mutually/universally beneficial power,  instead of a depleting power. I sought to paint the purest power of consciousness. This is power as experienced by humans, beyond the categories we divide and commune ourselves into, and power known by the beyond human. With purity as my aim, the visual language of industrial structures was too corrosive to introduce into the human form. 

​I tried a few paintings of figures with visual motifs of industrial power, however I sensed I was painting disease. I chose to stop, deciding that pain and disease was not what needed to be manifested into this world, nor into my body as the conduit. 

I needed a new visual language for power, and there began my search for a language that could accurately convey energy and power in its truest, most potent form. 

Industrial Energy — Sample Concluding Observations:
In a depleting relationship, imbalance of power is expressed when one privileges their desires, needs, and personal gain over the other or that of the whole. When the privileged one removes choice from the partnering party, trust fractures, resources deplete rapidly, the quality of relationship erodes, and the possibilities for future growth immediately become limited.

In a generative relationship, both parties hold equal value, compatible and complementary contributions, and create a relational culture in which consensual collaboration can thrive on physical, psychological, emotional, and energetic  levels. This  allows for fruitful, long-term growth. 

Triptych. Oil on 3 panels. 48x54 inches. 2007

Apocalypse. Oil on panel. 48x48 inches. 2008

Surrender, Oil on Panel. 36x36 inches. 2009. Private Collection

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"Shields Up" Charcoal on Rives BFK. 22x30 inches. 2008

"Power Struggle" Charcoal on Rives BFK. 22x30 inches. 2008

"Battle Remains" Charcoal on Rives BFK. 22x30 inches. 2008

2007 - 2008
POWER SERIES |  AUTHORITY

Themes: Separation, Conflict &War

• Survival through division   
• Domination and Control vs. Equality and Collaboration
• Force over flow

The 2008 presidential campaigns were in full swing and the tensions ran high, especially in the Southeast where I was living at the time. I chose to translate the tension and power plays observed in the presidential race using a cast of industrial structures. Using power poles instead of the humans and political characters who inspired me, I examined the underlying qualities of intentions and exchanges via the undercurrents of energy — motives and ethics. Doing so while free from depicting any person or party kept the subjects anonymous, and concepts politically neutral. It kept attention on the energy and off of the details that would surely create a partisan response, and surely be recreated by a new cast of characters in future elections.

In creating the Power Series, I came to believe that power imbalance in relationship begins with a belief that survival is based on separation and dominance, "It's either you or me." This belief is activated through judgement. (I interpret judgement as having a biassing charge of right or wrong, while discernment is a neutral tool in decision making.) When either party is judged as superior or inferior, right or wrong, safe or threatening, worthy or unworthy, etc. the other party is seen as the opposition instead of a collaborator.  The other becomes an obstacle instead of a collaborator or partner. Any act of judgement initiates a chain reaction of rejection, sacrificing the Other for a personal position of perceived superiority. From a position of judgment, dominance and hierarchy are prioritized over the relationship and, ultimately, once hierarchal roles are introduced, set, and jockeyed/struggled for — the relationship can no longer be experienced neutrally in the present moment. Trust is in question, and survival is at stake. 

Rejection from connection can lead to confusion, desperation, and varying levels of aggressive thought, words, and/or actions. Judgement, and rejection from connection also perpetuate rigidity in belief systems, creating weakness in the system. This rigid and fragile belief is usually based in a fear, and the violent reaction is intended to preserve the Self or preemptively demonstrate oneself as strong to ward off potential attacks. ​I'll use myself as an example of what this might look like in a real world scenario.

In certain past confrontations, I noticed I would prematurely assume that the Other would not support me when I communicated my needs. This placed them in an assumed role of opposition. Operating from this assumption, and moving from separation, I became preemptively defensive, also an oppositional stance. This resulted in my words and vocal tone being sharp, closed off, and my assertions made as though final, instead of being vulnerable, open, clear, and collaborative. When engaging in this way I was consistently received by the Other as aggressive. I felt hurt and scared, but I was in a combative stance, because I perceived them as separate Other, in opposition to my wants or needs being met, rather than a personal I"m moving and working alongside of.  The oppositional stance created the exact confrontation I originally feared and had hoped to avoid. Sometimes we do this overtly, sometimes we do this because we are depleted and simply don't want to share our energy with the other — because we don't trust it will be honored. 

Throughout the Power Series, oppositional forces are consistently demonstrated by the power poles splintering and snapping under pressure. The poles mimic the rigidity and fragility of over-attaching to any belief system at the cost of connection to the present circumstances and people in the present moment. There is generally a brittleness in any attachment is excessive or fixed, regardless of what the attachment may be toward or away from. 

Endurance is cultivated in a flexible approach, one that is designed for the exchange of information and energy. Simply put, this means approaching connection with curiosity, and investment in the wellbeing of all involved parties. 

Power Series — Sample Concluding Observations:
Rigid belief systems create hard edges in relationship, defining the self based upon that which it is separate from. 
When committed to separation, relationships fail to thrive or sustain long-term existence or growth.
Sustainable long-term growth in relationship requires ongoing updates to the perspectives and communications of those involved. 
Flexible belief systems create permeable edges in relationship that actively attract opportunities for connection and co-creation. 
Flexible people, relationships and systems are more able to adapt to evolutionary requirements and have a stronger potential for long-term survival. 

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2010 - 2014
ILLUMINATED PORTRAITURE

Themes: Subtle Perception & Electromagnetic Energy Fields

• Organic and unique expressions of energy.
• Flow over force.
• Translations of human power. 

In 2010 I moved to Philadelphia for my then-husband's MFA program.  I painted self-portraits in response to feeling lost in a new city and job, both of which were outside my comfort zone. I began to perceive colors and light around the body. When I tuned in to myself to feel what they represented, they felt like expressions of the body's electromagnetic energy fields. Color and light are frequencies, so it made sense that it would appear in this way. Kirlian photography is another example of the electromagnetic field captured as color.  

My curiosity around this new way of seeing resulted in paintings of figures with their energy bodies colorfully illuminated. I was not manipulating my vision to create a "perfect" or ideal energy flow, I was simply painting what I could see of the human expression of energy. An authentic human expression of energy is not always organized or even pretty because we have all experienced challenges and traumas which impact how our energy moves, blocks, and expresses in behavior. I did make the choice to only paint generative energy. To offer my attention on one's energy is to acknowledge, validate, and nurture it. I only wanted to amplify healthy energy in ways that were supportive to the individual and to myself. 
  
​During this time I began my studies in consciousness development. I learned about and engaged in astral projection at the Monroe Institute in Frazer Virginia. I learned about and engaged in indigenous practices of shamanism in the Q'ero and Shipibo cultures in Peru and through the Four Winds Society Founded by Dr. Alberto Villdolo Ph.D..

Through my research and training, my intuitive and skills of perception enhanced.  I came into close contact with worlds, and parts of myself and others that were too vast to describe through the limitations of words or even representational images.  The human form, in all its complex simplicity and elegance, was also a limitation.

Form itself became too specific. All forms have edges that separate them from other forms. Form provides a container in which energy is stored and can move. To paint the energetic exchanges between forms such as people, the planet, organ systems, and onward, I had to explore the formless and venture into abstraction. 

Illuminated Portraiture — Sample Concluding Observations: 
As my context changes, the quality, strength, and flow of energy within myself changes.
​As I offer my attention to the most apparent sensation (regardless of health), energy is inherently liberated and healing or expansion are experienced. 
​

"Anna - Brow Chakra" Oil on penal. 11x14 inches. 2010

"Prophet - Throat Chakra" oil on panel. 14x20 inches. 20013

"The Runner" oil on panel. 36x48 inches. 2014.

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2012
INITIATION

Themes: Discomfort of Reconnection

• The search for Self 
• Releasing that which does not serve
• Integrating new wisdom

To release my own attachment to separation I had to shift my vision away from the separation inherent to 3D form, and toward the formless.  With no form to reference for imagery, I had to heighten my receptivity and sensitivity to that which is formless. This meant growing my awareness of subtleties and developing skill and language in relating with them. A few examples of these subtleties on the personal level include emotion, thoughts, fear, and belief. Beyond the personal, these include concepts of time, subtle contractions and openings of flow, the content or information within a flow, the seeming source, direction and purpose of the flow, any contortions stagnations or blocks to the flow, and so on.

I began learning how to decipher which energy belonged to me (moving for me from source, or moving by my intention and motivation), and what energy belonged to others. I learned to track energy, similar to how one tracks a physical animal in the wild. 

My exploration of connection rooted in the concept of right-relationship, which I learned form the Q'ero shamanic lineage of Peru. How could I live in ways that honor the dignity of all I am in relationship with: all beings, surroundings, and natural forces.  This meant finding or creating a balance in relationship with myself, my peers, the earth, the cosmos, and all forces and elements of nature. To create this connection I began by acknowledging the many, many areas of my beliefs and behaviors in which I was not in connection, but favoring separation rooted in fear rather than love (separation or healthy distance or boundaries that are rooted in love can be healthy and in integrity). I identified my own belief systems and patterns of thought in which I was separated from, and rejecting my own history, relationship with my body, and my emotions. The pain of each separation had been quietly rippling out into my external relationships for years, and I'd been blind to it, blaming others for my pain and seeking escape. No more. I took responsibility (and it was profoundly uncomfortable).

To resolve this I began with my attention, noticing what felt out of balance. Being out of balance felt like resentment, bitterness, anger, frustration, annoyance, fear, even entitled, or shameful. These are feelings that were heightened to get my attention. I set intentions one-by-one to create balance, and allowed myself to receive and engage in the opportunities that would inevitably arise to answer my call for balance. 

As I did this I put my attention on energy movement through and around our bodies. I perceived shapes and colors that represented blocks within a person's electromagnetic field. These were the imbalances as expressed energetically, creating dense areas of energy that presented as color and shape and blocked the natural flow of energy. It was like seeing an energetic shield prohibiting their most natural and comfortable life expression.  This shield kept their energy from moving out to connect, and it kept the energy of others from moving in to connect. Some avenues for energy flow remained open, others required a detour, while still others were totally blocked and stagnated. This energy presented as colored shapes with varying degrees of density. (To be clear, I am not judging the shield, only identifying it as present and detrimental to connection with self and others. I understand these energetic shields are created in the name of protection and safety and that they can be dismantled once in a safe environment. I will speak more on this later.) 

I began to paint my perceptions of energy beyond form. Through abstract language I began to paint portraits of myself in relationship with others. 

With these intentions and developments, my life began to shift and reorganize in significant ways that slowly deconstructed how I had previously seen, understood and related to life and the world I was participating in. 

Initiation —  Concluding observation:
As I remove my attention from the predefined roles, labels, and expectations, I contact the more True yet still impermanent nature of my experience in each moment and become unowned. I am free.
As I acknowledge and take responsibility for my present perception of reality, I claim the power needed to transcend old habitual or detrimental patterns and liberate my Creative Center. 
I become my real-time Co-Creator of inner Consciousness with surrounding Consciousness.

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2012
LUMINOUS RELATIONSHIPS

Themes: Connection beyond the physical

• Formless Energy exchanges in relationship
• Anonymity through formlessness
• Freedom and unrestricted expression
• ​Abstraction as a refuge for healing
  

In 2012 a traumatic experience prompted me to move into the freedom of abstraction. I had intense emotion in my body that needed to process. I did not have the the time to spare to accurately paint the human figure or any other form. Painting a known form requires analysis of the mind. It would have taken me out of my somatic experience, and inhibited my release of the pain it was holding. I needed freedom to move, freedom to feel, and freedom from the expectations, judgements and beliefs of others. 

As I processed my emotions, the abstract shapes and colors revealed memories — beliefs and ideas I had been holding as truth that were not only untrue, they weren't even mine! I was able to begin sifting through pieces that were mine and pieces that belonged to other people in my life. I found that I carried a tremendous amount of baggage that was not mine and I was able to begin releasing it (easier said than done).

Painting these images abstractly gave me anonymity. My subject was my Self, my own inner, abstract terrain and language. Images revealed my feelings, my beliefs, my memories and confusion. It was my search for what is real at my essence. 

Abstraction became a healing tool that transmuted my pain. I let my body move the way she wanted and needed to. I let my body choose what colors to mix and how to introduce, apply, scrape, wash or thrust it onto the canvas. The result was transformative. I was not fully healed, but the next expression that needed voice came out. The result was a body of work that seemed to hold the vibration of my sincere search for truth and the healing that came with it. I believe this because these particular paintings received an incredibly potent response from my viewers, and all of these paintings sold off the easel before they even had a chance to be exhibited.

"Blue" Oil on Panel. 48x48 inches. 2013

"Power Play" Oil on 3 joined panels. 48x48 inches. 2014

The result of processing through abstraction was connection, free from labels. This was a connection with the Feminine, an uninhibited voice that emerged from a long silence and "good girl" conditioning, here to offer evidence that nourishment can be available simply through the act of existing. I came to know that the truth of my healing and new connection with Self was not only beautiful to look at,  but also beautiful to feel in all its texture and tumult.  This positive impact, the connection with others as I connect to self, became my new thread of curiosity. 

Abstract healing — Sample Concluding Observations:
My most authentic expression exists beyond form.
As I give voice to my authentic self I magnetize relationship and conversation with the authenticity of others, creating new opportunity for collaboration, shared growth, and new rest in Truth. 

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2013 - 2017
SAFE PASSAGE

Themes: Dignifying the Spectrums of Human Experience

• Dignity & Imperfection.
• Acceptance of pain, loss, failure, and grief.
• Visual meditation as tools for processing and re-patterning. 

After these paintings I went into a gestational period in which I stopped working and rarely left my home. In that time I led and co-led an international women’s group online that focused on feminine leadership. As I connected with these highly conscious women on a routine basis, my way of engaging in relationships elevated dramatically.

2016 and 2017 represented a period of contraction and massive change. ​The revelations were so transformative that my entire world began to take new shape; I sustained an injury to my stomach/solar-plexus which initiated a new partnership with my body. Simultaneously, the ten years I'd spent with my then-husband came to an end. ​As each aspect of my world shifted I opened to a new access point in my painting practice. These paintings are an early result of touching into this new access point. 

Due to the injury and its impacts, I was only able to paint for short periods of time and I had to remain seated. The images shown are what I call healing portals. I began these on my living room floor and continued my exploration at a residency with Alex Grey and Allyson Grey in 2016. Each intimate painting (8.5 x 8.5 inches) served as a conversation with a chakra, and a healing processes granting much needed guidance and support. 

Colors and shapes represented the pain I was in and the healing I was seeking physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. Within the structure of these circles, I began mapping my healing process in abstract language. In physical discomfort I met the emotional and psychological discomfort. I felt everything and gave it movement, purpose, color, shape, and a way out of my form of my body and into a new form, paint on paper. We were freed into separateness. I was able to witness it as an image, and begin individuating from it. 

Athletes leave it all on the field. I left it all on the canvas. What was left in the end was a vibration of healing, and transcendence of the old pain in exchange for a newly realized strength within myself. 

The marriage ended with love and care in 2017. I arrived to the Arizona desert with my Nissan Rogue packed high. I lived at an artist residency for two years. It had opened as I was beginning my plans to leave the east coast. When I left Arizona in 2019, it dissolved back into the desert. It was like the mirage of an oasis, a refuge, that appeared exactly when I needed it, and only for as long as I needed it, including one particularly soulful friend.
​
Safe Passage — Sample Concluding Observation:

• As I accept my discomfort or pain, I connect with the parts of myself that are needing and capable of compassion. I allow myself. We allow us. I hold myself. We hold us. 
  
• As I feel and express my pain, I release all inner hostages and allow the consciousness of my emotions to speak their truth without fear of punishment. I am free. We are free. My voice matters. Our voices matter.
• As I hold myself with gentle presence, I ground my presence with what is, how it is. I free myself of the delusion that I must know the way, or that anything must be fixed. I free myself to purely be. You free me to purely be. We  free us to purely be. We free each other to purely be.

• I dissolve all attachment to the illusions of idealism and the suffering they cause.  I welcome peace with the purity of what is. We welcome peace with the purity of what is. I honor and validate in my awareness the vital life force of what is. We honor and validate in our awareness the vital life force of what is. 

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2018
​VISIONS OF FREEDOM

Themes: A Transient Self

• Freedom as liberation from limits. 
• Abstraction as a tool for developing personal awareness
• Relationship to self and others through color, shape, light, and time.
• Seasons ending in super bloom and seed. A  surge of ancestors for new generations. 

My work in Arizona remained abstract, yet the paintings began shifting into maps, revealing landmarks and insights regarding where I'd been, and where I was headed. The abstract elements organized into a guiding language, describing and illuminating the otherwise unseen and ineffable in my steps along the way. The images felt like landscapes, and painting them was like reaching blindly through a veil to a world that I could only sense by some felt touch of my intuition and deep listening. My pilgrimage was through an inner terrain. 

My abstract visual language was as a route to: 

1. Developing my awareness of Self, 
2. Articulating my experience. 
3. Exploring, learning, creating and refining and growing fluency in a language of communication with Creation (listening, translating, and responding).
4. Strengthening my relationship with Creation through a rewarding and reciprocal dialogue.
5. Growing my autonomy in relationship and collaboration with others. 

As I painted these images I had no plan. In my studio, within myself, I would sense for an energy or feeling that needed to move. Maybe it was the shape of loneliness, or the color of a childhood memory. I'd add the marks to the canvas (or primed paper), sit back, and feel into them and myself until the next movement surfaced. This might show up as a subtle shift in mind from the open unknown to the illumination of insight, from inquiry to knowing, from patient and receptive stillness to clear and purposeful action. The energy body converses, initiates and guides. The body does the work. The mind interprets the exposed truth. The heart laughs in a pleasure of appreciation and awe of the beauty I'm still meeting. 

I would reveal my inquiries and insights, and in right time and context I will, but for now it's simple enough to say that my route of knowing was mine. And yours is yours. I could tell you, or you can have an embodied experience. So, for now, I keep the majority of these details sacred, and invite you to receive what it is time for you to receive as you view any of these works, and view life itself unfolding through and around you. I am not withholding, but making room for you to be in your right-inquiry and right-timing of discovery. I give you this space by also honoring the time and space for my right-sharing.  Time knows. 

"Rainbow Child" Oil on prepared paper. 16x16 inches. 2017

"Seed of Potential" Oil on prepared paper. 20x20 inches. 2017

"Gateway to the New World" Oil on prepared paper. 20x20 inches. 2017

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2019
A NEW HUE-MANITY

Each painting revealed itself through a sequence of sensations and insights, like a photo developing in a darkroom. I'd be 75% of the way through a piece and finally say to myself "Oh, that's what this is about." The new wisdom became present in my mind even though it had been recognized by my nervous system since the first mark of the painting.

Each brush stroke updated my energy field, meaning there was a combination of clearing old data (ideas, beliefs, misinformation, distractions etc.) and enlivening or installing new beneficial circuitry (embodied, helpful knowing).

My energy field is the same veil or membrane I share with Source Consciousness. As the mind, like the nucleus of a cell, recognizes the informational, benevolent Truth of what Source delivered through the membrane, a bridge is completed. The origin of the bridge, the initial impulse of inspiration that eventually became a complete bridge, is a question of what came first, the chicken or the egg?" And being that cells spawn from Source, from my perspective and experience, it is simple and apparent that Source wishes to know itself, and we are part of the whole of Source. So this impulse of creation is the inherent resonant vibration in both Source and the nucleus, energy and form, desiring to know itself, with Source having access to the next building blocks of materials coming into form.

This type of transformation is not about fixing. This is about connecting, and loving what is available and true in myself. Abstraction has given me the freedom to love what arises and to acknowledge the absolute beauty of my own experience, even when it is uncomfortable. 

Concluding observations:
As I give voice to the invisible aspects of myself through abstract imagery, I see myself with more clarity and care. Perceived reality shifts. 
As I release my attachment to form, I deepen relationship with the enduring vibrations of myself.
As I understand that my mind is a participant but not in control of my experience, I receive limitless guidance and inspiration in service of my and our highest good.  
​
Abstraction is the language of our future and evolution. 

If these vibration fields want to harmonize, to have compatible and mutually met desires, or compatible magnetism the inspiration of a child or spawn of creation is born to make the journey. The final bridging element was allowed through the membrane only because the nucleus gave instructions to provide safe passage to allow beneficial resource in service of the greatest good of this self, Self, and all that is. That root instruction is originally placed by Source as an instruction to preserve not just the life force in form, but the experience of Source Consciousness knowing and learning to Love itself, Our Self, back into an order that feels good and dynamically balanced in connection with functional placements of interconnection organized to serve the parts and whole for long term ease, enjoyment and purpose. 

As I paint, and the mind begins to see and understand what Source is delivering through the energy field, nervous system,  body, and a lifetime of cultivated skills, it is proof to me that the mind is usually the last one to the party, and still an essential addition to the fun end evolution of unfolding possibilities.

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In my paintings and drawings, I continue to meet the aspects of myself that are abstract (or unheld by familiar 3D forms). Some aspects of myself are in harmony, some are organizing into harmony and others are content to roam rogue and free until it is time for them to come into relationship. With each mark I am communicating with or for aspects of myself. Previously drowned out by the chatter and control of mind or external expectations, these aspects become more real and sovereign in their new voice and language. These formerly hidden aspects find their voice, there is finally room for them to be "seen" as I offer witness, and heard as I translate their voice through color, shape and mark (and often accompanying movement, dance, toning and singing). These, my fleet of facets and aspects, have always been here, moving, reflecting and humming light into a rainbow of experience. In a way, they are the truest parts of myself, because they didn't lose themselves in the storms of life. 

It is very hard to hear these parts of myself through mind-chatter. When I am in relationships, it can be challenging to discern what is mine, versus what I empathically feel from another person, whether that be in the ways I'm impacted or influenced, or what simply exists within them. 

Abstraction as a tool for developing personal awareness

When I view abstract art forms, I experience only myself in response to an image. The art is done. It is sovereign, objective information. So whatever arises within me in response, whether it be admiration, irritation, rejection, celebration, sadness, memories, joy, or otherwise — it is all mine. Judge as I may, the art is neutral, even if its message is not. The charge is in how I respond to it, because I, along with every other view, am the other side of a circuit.

Viewing art can be a practice of choosing what you want to create in a relationship of any type. I can see myself clearly when the Other is not a person, but an artistic reflection of various parts of myself, whether I know them in this body and lifetime or through another. My instinctual (primal) reaction to the art is my woodland symphony of inner voices. Instinct will show me how I orient and find my position in a Gaian sense. My intuitive (subtle energy body) response will show simple resonance or discord through the sensations of opening or closure. It is a step (or many) removed from the physical response, and is able to meet the art as a field, wave, or frequency that I am finding my right resonance or proximity with, to sustain, amplify, harmonize, or preseve my field, waves, and frequencies in alignment, not with a fixed identity through out time, but with my alive presence through my evolving timeline. This is an ongoing practice of tracing the outer world, and tracking for my thoughts, words, opportunities, choices, and actions that radiate who I need to be now so I can be who I want to be next. 

When I feel pain or anger in response to a gesture or color on the canvas, I have a choice. Will I accept the discomfort of my anger and all the judgment I may place upon it, or will I allow my anger to be felt, knowing that it already lived inside of me, before this painting came into view. I can ask myself, "What am I angry about? How do I need to acknowledge it and give it voice?" As I become curious about my anger, and own it as mine without blame or attempted escape, I come into deeper connection with myself. I can follow the same process with my joy, and with all emotions.

Practicing with abstract imagery can be simpler, safer, and easier than practicing with a person. Another person will inevitably bring their own "baggage" and variables to the equation, and bring up your baggage and variables. A painting is stimulating yet neutral. 

This process can be applied whether you are the viewer or creator of a piece of art. Finding your Self through the color in a painting or the mark of a drawing creates a momentary container of time and space, during which a thought or emotion can be activated and felt with minimal risk. ​

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2020 - ongoing
PSYCHOLOGLYPH &
the CREATOR'S SPIRAL

Themes: The Macro & Micro, the Map and the Moves

• Syncing with cosmic rhythm and cycles
• Reclaiming relational movement
• Creating & navigating a map of Conscious evolution
• Creating and learning the maps of Consciousness in Right-Relationship

In November of 2019 I left the artist residency in Arizona, and returned to my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia to be closer to family. I'd had a premonition of a seismic wave of death. As much as I tried to deny it, the impending impact continued to grow and haunt me. Without knowing where it would land, I drove the moving truck back east with my father caravanning behind me. We unpacked in the foothills of the blue ridge mountains as Covid-19 emerged in China. 

The Conscious Creator's Spiral (CCS) and Psychologlyphs (PG) were both born during my time in the desert, yet they became primary focus during and after covid lock-down.

Conscious Creator's Spiral is a process map, facilitating personal healing and skill-building that expedites one's development as a conscious creator, that is, one who is in active collaboration with Source. CCS is an integrated route and map that is both solid and fluid, holding its form and purpose while adapting and customizing to each person's unique experience of Creation. 

Psychologlyph is a visual language that teaches relational health by bringing concepts of psychology and philosophy into easily digestible images. I created this language and body of work to process complex relational experiences, care for my inner child, and to learn how to be a better parent, friend, colleague, partner, and human in this world. As I mapped, drew and painted, hundreds of dynamics and concepts, I discovered that others who experience Psychologlyphs also experience profound and positively change.  

Psychologlyph: Conscious Connection, 3x8 inches, Gouache on Paper, 2024

Psychologlyph: Collaboration - Water Element, 6x8 inches, Gouache on Paper, 2022

My journey described above, was seeded in 2003, initiated in 2008, and culminated a major cycle at the end of 2024. My devotion, and the support I've received along the way, has allowed me to birth these bodies of work into form, and continue learning how to steward them to maturity. 

2025 begins a new Cycle as the work continues  my joyful task and calling to bridge this material to others, through coaching, trainings, and curriculum that can be implemented in classrooms, counselor's offices, trauma prevention and treatment, and in homes for family and individual healing and fortification.  

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​Thank you for taking the time to read my notebooks.