My mother was a greenhouse
She birthed a million babies
And her grandchildren
See the world now
From the wings of honeybees

—

Painted for the Humboldt Botanical Gardens, 2023
The Gardens are a beautiful place and each year they invite a bunch of artists to come and paint on the grounds. They feed us sandwiches and even serve us beers. Each year I walk around for 40 minutes grumbling about how in the world am I supposed to paint here, where there is no horizon, no ocean, no rolling waves… just fields of complicated colors all up in your face everywhere you look. And then I end up finding someone nice to sit beside and chat with while painting something like this. It really is a delightful day and I’m glad to be invited.