Artist Statement

In xochitl, in cuicatl

There is a Nahuatl saying: In xochitl, in cuicatl. Flower and song.

To me, it speaks to the many ways human beings create and find meaning. We paint, dance, write, sing, tattoo, weave, drum, gather around fire, and tell stories. By right of being a human being, we are artists first. Extensions of creation.

I believe art is among humanity's earliest ritual acts of devotion. Long before it was separated into disciplines or institutions, creativity offered a way to make meaning, preserve memory, enter into kinship, and understand our place within the living world.

I have never understood creativity as something confined to a single medium. My work explores personal storytelling, mythology, Indigenous philosophies, and the symbolic imagination through painting, writing, ceremony, research, divination, publishing, and education. I approach them as related practices that continually inform one another.

Through image-making, ritual, and relational ways of learning, I investigate themes of identity, ancestral veneration, feminine archetypes, firekeeping, and humanity's relationship with the natural world. Much of my recent work is grounded in the Tonalpohualli as a living philosophy through which to explore creativity, observation, reciprocity, and connection.

For many years I returned repeatedly to the image of the solitary woman. My paintings often depicted women alone in landscapes, beneath open skies, or surrounded by stars. It took years before I understood these figures were seeking after the same question. Today my work has evolved into intentional bodies of work exploring storytelling, firekeeping, Tlazolteotl, the Tonalpohualli, and the exchanges that shape our lives.

Over time I realized that the paintings, writings, journals, ceremonies, retreats, educational offerings, and conversations were all connected pursuits. They were all expressions of the same body of questions. That evolving body of work eventually became Cihuateotcalli.

At the heart of my practice is the belief that creativity is not separate from life. It is one of our oldest ways of studying, reclaming, healing, and participating in the world.