Acrylic on canvas. 2011

“If you could understand what it is to breathe again—after your breath has been stolen for so long…”

Acrylic on canvas. 2011

“Settle down, mindful of this minute and the one that follows—not too busy ripping weeds to notice the morning’s gossamer film in the big powder blue—and the dove hopping ‘round the thicket of your heart and cooing, ‘Peace, for all dwells still.’”

Acrylic on canvas. 2013

“Let me tell you how I love you

As the shoots that reach for light

As it wanes in autumn

For hope that sturdies the stalks

Of aged plants after many harvests

That they may fruit ‘till dying breath

‘Till last light and frost and dust or blight

Are my thoughts, is my heart for you

Carried by the current of dreams and whispered prayers

Tucked into dark cool places to cure like seed

Does my hope lie verdant and my heart in wait for spring

To be planted with you, to go to seed or whatever may come

To love you wherever you fly.”

Acrylic on canvas. 2015

“December finds me where colors darken and fade, and dreams sleep deeply.

I pressed into the nights

Pasted them onto the pages of my memories

The ones I keep

Close to where I sleep

That I may awake in slumber

To dream them to color again”

“Wading in the calf-deep morass, tepid and fetid with thick oil-slick mirrors and rainbow bands that bend and stretch—every step mocks the muted sky. Blanking on the horizon’s hue, pallid and wan and headache effulgent with chalky clouds that fleck and dust—every step mocks the muted sky—reeling in the crimson wait, weathered and weak with hungering deep, with words of promise that linger and ebb—every step mocks the muted sky.”

Interpretation of one of Paul Gauguin’s paintings. Acrylic on canvas. 2016

“When you leave a place, you exchange a piece of yourself for a memory, and it is often an even trade, for we know where we are by what we remember…

Words pour through our hearts

Fill our steps, reflect

We shift our treasures

As we sift our thoughts

Some pearls must be dropped

To bear what we carry

Who can say

What a morning may hold

Save gentle light—

Blessed hope of His mercies”

“Spinning ever on, the world tilted pushing towards a new horizon.

I spin

let me show

show you sorrow

ring of hope

fissure of dark

let

me show, sorrow

my closest companion

I know sorrow

know him well

sadness bites

always bites my heels”

Acrylic on canvas. 2017

Hope that took my hand

And stilled my soul

When called my voice o’er Sorrow’s

Bid me rest

The briery vex, which barred my way

And each step—feet filled with thorns

Soaked through by storms that raged

Against the nascent morn’

In my heart, I hear, “Remember”

I know He ne’er forsaketh

Long the dark and narrow way

And heaven’s promise drives us on

In a world not fit for home”

“This, the color of my love.

Just to be with You in the sweetness of sacrifice now unafraid of never having what I thought I’d always wanted—now unafraid of trusting You in darkness, of walking where I cannot see. Your voice is enough—and to look into the eternal majesty of Your eyes, meek and humble, is enough to settle my heart for all my days.”

Acrylic on canvas. 2018

Acrylic on canvas. 2020

Acrylic on canvas. 2020

Commissioned piece.

Acrylic on canvas. 2022

Acrylic, plaster, and grass on sheetrock. 2022

Acrylic and plaster on canvas. 2022

Acrylic and colored pencil on sheetrock. 2022

“Silence can burn so loud

And scratch like rug burns on the forehead

Crying out so desperately and loud from a muted heart

When strength fades and sleep overtakes thought and focus

And all the unanswereds are beaten into the gravel with each blow of a hoe at the life root

Trying to reconcile

Trying to reconcile years and time and depth

And why feelings come and go

And why life still grows and must be trained like berry shoots in the fall

And how it’s okay to cherish things in the heart and not need to be seen

And not need to be praised

And that just being still with You is more than enough

And You plumb the depths of my heart

And I cry out and grasp at the hem of Your voice”

Acrylic, plaster, paper, and tea leaves on sheetrock. 2023

I started this piece with a stack of worship music that had been collecting dust. I’ve felt shut down and burned out for the last four years.

I thought about how we offer pleasing sacrifices to the Lord—how we place things on the altar, and the fire of His presence consumes them and turns them into a pleasing aroma.

I shredded and steeped these pages in tea, as I pondered these truths.

Using this mixture of paper and tea along with glue and plaster, I formed the texture for this piece’s surface.

It’s a new day, and I’m pressing in towards a new song of praise.

Acrylic and graphite on canvas boards. 2023

“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;

for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest…”

Hebrews 4:9-11