We humans don’t do alone well. We confuse solitude for loneliness. We seem frightened of or oftentimes angry with those who choose to be alone. There is a weird sort of social judgment or blame cast on individuals who choose solitary lives. We ridicule and punish and call names. This feels like bullying by the…

“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes…

I have been thinking a lot about where I want to go with my work in this next chapter of my weird life. It occurred to me that maybe I should revisit recurring themes in my work to try to understand where I have come from or maybe where I always get caught up, snagged,…

I have been reading everything I can find about hermits and eremites. I have been searching for stories about women hermits. There are fewer stories about them than there are men. I am fascinated by the stories of people who choose solitude. The reasons why people choose a solitary life interest me. There are social…

I’ve been at the studio all morning but haven’t gotten anything done. The dog is restless and asks for a walk every ten minutes and once my concentration is broken it seems to take me forever to find my way back to my work. Oh well. Just one of those days. I spent a couple…

It is almost spring. I am almost in a better mood. I am almost ready to start a new project. I am almost ready to shove my winter monsters back in their boxes in the pantry. I am not sure I can keep them there. I am still angry at the powers that shouldn’t be…

“I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth.” Miranda from  Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven I feel like Dr. Eleven from Station Eleven, living a lonely life in my space station, longing to return to the life I used to know on Earth. There is…

I always wake very early. Ever since I was a child, I have greeted the day alone in a quiet house before others have opened their eyes and begun to stumble around, stirring the stillness with their snuffling and shuffling and banging. It is in these moments before the rest of the house wakes that…

I do not make monster art. Not exactly. I try to make art about the human condition so I feel I am indirectly acknowledging the presence of monsters–but I am not sure it’s enough anymore to suggest, imply, hint. I think my language has been too passive. I need to be more direct. I think…