I painted my first hummingbirds weeks after my father passed away following his battle with cancer. At the time, I couldn't have explained why I was so drawn to them. I simply kept painting them.

Then people began sharing their stories.

At my exhibitions, collectors would tell me about someone they loved, a hummingbird that appeared at just the right moment, or a memory they had carried for years. Over time, I came to understand that hummingbirds often hold a deeply personal meaning, one that reaches far beyond the bird itself.

Those conversations have shaped my work ever since.

Long before hummingbirds became the focus of my paintings, I had always been captivated by the quiet details of the natural world. The soft blush of early morning light. Weathered bark on an old tree. The cool feeling of damp grass beneath bare feet. The way nature quietly rewards anyone willing to slow down and look a little longer.

Painting became my way of holding on to those moments.

My early work explored abstraction before gradually evolving into textured landscapes and seascapes built layer upon layer with ocean sand, bark, handmade papers, raw linen, and gold leaf. Somewhere in almost every one of those paintings, there was a bird—a crane, a swan, a gull—small against an open horizon.

Looking back, I think they were always about the same thing.

One far away. The other up close.