I spent my childhood exploring and playing in the Maine woods in and around my home. My other favorite pastime was drawing for long stretches of my days. I didn't realize when I was little how these two childhood pastimes would ground me as an adult.

I understand that the natural world—not the material one man has created—was and is God's church, temple, and synagogue. I feel connected to the Divine when I watch birds, study trees, or go for a hike. The Divine is birdsong, leaves bristling in the breeze and trees conversing with one another through their entwined roots deep underneath my feet in the woods I hike.

I came to create watercolor and ink illustrations quite by accident. Whenever I needed to relieve the stresses of life, I would pick up the brush. Life offers no answers, only magic, mysteries and miracles. The most awesome way to experience this conscious realm is by communing with and in nature. So I paint to remember my days exploring Mother Nature and the Divine's perfect energy. 

I do not have formal training as an artist; I picked up techniques along my watercolor journey by playing with the medium and discussing its methods with a friend who is a classically trained botanical watercolorist.

The material world would have us believe that when we grow up, we become our careers and stay in the box society has created for us and labeled us as. It took most of my adult life to learn that I am not my job; my profession does not define who I am and that I don't fit in a tidy little box with a label. My love defines me.

My love is to create art, write, be in nature and share that love with others. My watercolor illustrations and musings interweave themes of spirituality, the mystical, the natural world and how these realms intersect with my Blackness. My illustrations are also like prayers to little Black children who have yet to discover who they truly are. They are not who the world says they are. I pray that they see themselves as God sees them, as seekers, explorers and little creators.