“A veil of fog is beginning to lift after over a year of enforced separation. As we emerge we survey the damage of over 3 million deaths worldwide, over 500,000 in the United States alone. We must reckon with the ravages of disease, racism, isolation, and polarization. Our collective spirit resembles a body emerging from icy cold waters, blue from a lack of all that nurtures it – warmth, and air.

I can’t breathe.

Is what Eric Garner stated as he was choked to the ground and killed for selling loose cigarettes. Is what those felled by COVID-19 felt as they asphyxiated while politicians played games pitting health against the economy.

Is what George Floyd gasped, before succumbing to the knee that was on his neck. There is so much from which we must recover. As an artist it is easy to create from a state of angst, as a way to exorcise the trauma, as a way to express whatever coils inside of me. But in the end, we want to be healed. And we heal in community.

Resilience is about a coming together. It is about feeling an abundance of oxygen and warmth, of community and care taking the place of greed and solitary confinement.

I see you.
You are worthy.
You are loved.
Your contribution is important.

My art is one of tremendous hope in the face of human-created suffering. Look at each other. See each other. Let us build bridges of care that help us all to invest in human potential, that are the critical differences between vanquish and vibrancy. As we find each other in the room together again, breath in deeply the essence of our mutual humanity. And understand this is the elixir that allows us to persevere in love.