In 1994, I lived and worked in Africa as a humanitarian aid worker during war in Rwanda. In the mountains at night, countless stars seemed to merge with scattered campfires in the refugee camp below. It was a dark panorama with no boundary between the sky and mountains. I pondered the sense of connection that I experienced between a lonely and hostile Earth with the distant universe above. And then I understood what art really meant. Art is a kinship; it bonds us to ideas, objects, colors, and nature. The refugee camp is met by a billion stars holding vigil. Ernest Hemingway describes the stars as our brothers. My art explores this sense of brotherhood, and it seeks to find optimism in the natural world: insects and fish for their bright colors, celestial subjects for their splendor, blueberries for their whimsy, rivers and the ocean for their curious wandering, oyster shells for their silent beauty.
