Artist
After the Caldor Fire of 2021, I made charcoal drawings for an exhibition named, ‘Call and Response’ at Lake Tahoe Community College. It was a cathartic process for me and our community, and a firm reminder of the power of art to help process a traumatic event. Recently, I visited the South Tahoe Middle and …
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about magic. I don’t mean, ‘Pulling a rabbit from the hat’ type of magic, but the kind of everyday magic that is the mystery of existence. I catch glimpses of it through the bathroom window while I’m brushing my teeth. I sense it when I notice a seedling has …
After the Caldor fire of 2021, our landscape was changed forever. We now live in the green heart of a burnt forest, miraculously saved by the wind and relentless firefighting. We were evacuated for three weeks. Christmas Valley was saved, but sadly other communities such as Grizzly Flats were completely destroyed. I watched a mushroom …
“Last year, the owner of my local yoga studio commissioned drawings of every pose in the Ashtanga Primary Series. The journey of making 76 drawings became a kind of inner pilgrimage. Through my own practice of Ashtanga I learned to own my narrative. Memorizing the sequence and taking responsibility for my practice helped me to begin to acknowledge my own role in life, and to be kinder to myself and others.
The early drawings were tentative and humbling: Lots of erasing, many corrections. Gradually, they evolved with more confident mark making, both firmly rooted to the earth and taking flight into the cosmos. The drawings informed my yoga practice, teaching me about alignment, form and grace. The practice, in turn infused my drawings with a deeper understanding of anatomy, balance, drishti, and breath.”
When my yoga teacher, Laura Josephy asked me if I’d be interested in drawing every pose in the Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series for her teacher training manual, I jumped at the opportunity. I love drawing the human figure, and the challenge of making 75 studies felt like an extension of my own yoga practice, and an opportunity to deepen my understanding of anatomy. What I hadn’t anticipated was the profound nature of the journey, both artistically and personally.