This painting is part of the "Memory in Bloom" series, which explores the importance of ancestral memory in our relationship to land, animals, and plants. Motivated by the loss of my family’s farm and my experience as the last generation in my family to steward the land, I combine portraits of animals overlaid with flowers to represent the ties between past and present and highlight the importance of ancestral lineage in the food system. My work is a visual representation of humans’ ability to emotionally connect with beings that are not human and seeks to remind viewers of their own unique and cultural relationship with land.
 
"Aurora" depicts a donkey that lived on our farm in Vermont when I was a child. Donkeys are naturally noisy creatures, and every morning when the sun rose over the mountains, it was not the roosters that woke me, but our donkey. This painting represents the feeling of waking up, when you are not fully conscious, with the sun trickling in through the blinds and the promise of a gorgeous day.

This painting is 10" x 10" x 2", and is an original oil painting on wood. It has been shown at Solas Studio in Manhattan and the D'Art Center in Norfolk, VA.