Land reconnectioN COMMISSION
we’LL gather earth pigment from a place you chose and transform the stones into watercolor. back in the studio, I’ll paint your custom piece with the very pigment we harvested. This is art for your home made from the land, a living piece of the earth in conversation with you everyday.
Is there a place in nature that feels like HOME? When yOU arrive, you exhale.
Is there a place you long to be, where you feel like you belong? When you’re there, you just feel good.
The light feels different, the sound of water or birds or wind feel different. You feel alive and settled all at once.
Maybe it’s a place from your past that holds strong memories, and you want to draw a thread from the past into the present in a tangible, meaningful way. Maybe it’s a new place you want to anchor into, where the land seems to call to you, a place you long to be at home. Maybe the place is home, and you feel a pull to root into the land, to connect, to celebrate your relationship with this piece of the earth.
JOIN ME in this simple, transformational practice of reconnection with the living world.
Once on the land, we will begin by taking in what’s around us with all our senses. We will search for and identify pigment-rich materials together.
We will ask the stones’ permission to process them into pigment.
We will consider what gifts we might offer in return for our harvest.
When I work, I quietly allow what I notice, hear or intuit to become part of me, to change how I think of my place in the living world.
The painting carries the earth turned into pigment into your home and anchors these subtle changes within your everyday life. In relationship with you as you make your coffee, wrangle your kids, and do your dishes, as you sleep and wake and begin again.
the LAND RECONNECTION commission process
First we’ll connect via my contact page so I can hear about the place you have in mind. I’ll share options for your painting (available sizes, etc) and find the best way to harvest your pigment. (I’m available to travel so we can be on the land together or I can guide you through my practice remotely to collect color.)
Once we have your Land Reconnection mapped out, we’ll set a date and make initial payment arrangements to reserve your commission. (I have a limited number of spots available for this immersive experience and deeply custom work.)
We’ll harvest pigment in the spirit of my practice and I’ll return to the studio with the color we receive, or we can arrange for it to be shipped.
Once the pigment is in the studio, I will make your painting. It will be ready in 4-6 weeks to be picked up at my studio or shipped.
When the piece is complete, I will be available to make framing and hanging recommendations to ensure your Land Reconnection painting is settled beautifully in your home.
R. and her family walk the trail across from their house every day. The path winds through the forest where large glacial erratic boulders sit stacked on the hill shaded by much younger trees.
Bright moss grows its green skin over roots and stone walls. At the end, a seasonal stream flows down the hill and claims the path as its bed for awhile before rushing on down the slope below.
This is where I found the stones, golds and gray greens tucked among the rusty tones of fall leaves where the water gathers them at the edge of each pool on its downward way. I plucked each one from the stream. The forest around me felt a little more alive.
Back in the studio, a palette emerges, icy blue grey, soft yellow ochre, a brown like the bark of the bare trees. On the page the colors pool and bleed in from my brush in a single flow. I follow without question. A painting emerges from the aliveness of the stone.
R’s partner commissioned this piece as a surprise gift, on their celebration day, he texted one word:
“Tears”
then later, “Such a meaningful piece of work. When I told her the stones were from our creek, she was very moved.”
