About the Artists

But it lead to me feeling like my day-to-day was a “job” again. And just like my 30th birthday, when I decided to leave my moderately “successful” marketing career to pursue art… I knew in my bones that it was time to take my art in a different direction.

In November 2022, I moved home to California, after 4 years in New York.

When people would ask my why I was moving, I usually replied, “because the trees are calling.”

Like any good New Yorker during covid, I had STOCKED up on dozens of houseplants, transforming my Brooklyn live/work space into a jungle. I loved those plants and shared many deep conversations with them. I started talking about the garden I would someday soon begin working on as my next large scale “canvas.”

Back in Novato, CA in the same house that was the pillar of my childhood: first as grandma and grandpas house we would visit every summer, then became my parents house when grandma and grandpa moved into “the cottage” on the same property. The house I lived in during high school. The driveway I drove out of when I first got my drivers license.

It was purchased to be “horse property,” and at one point there were 12 horses living here. There are a handful of structures on the property (main house, little cottage, two barns, large covered arena), and all except the “main house” served as a horse residence at some point over the last 55 years.

For his entire life that I knew him (and long before I sprouted on this planet), my grandpa Lloyd always had a dog; and always had a horse.

Rocky (dog) and Jesse (Horse) were the first pair I remember, but when I was 5 years old he got a horse named “Spook” that would become a pillar of the property. Spook lived until November 2022, cashing in 32 years of sweet ranch living.

I rode spook a handful of times as a kid, but did not feel drawn to horses when I was young. I don’t carry regrets with me through this life, but if I did, spending more time on the horse (and with grandpa) during my childhood would be near the top of my list.

But I did grow a strong attachment to Spook, face-to-face instead of on his back. When I moved back to Novato at the age of 30 to pursue my passion for art (2015), I set up my first studio space at the end of the “new barn.”

In what was built by Lloyd and his friends to be a “hay room,” the sturdy plywood box sat at the back of 10 horse stalls, and at the base of a gentle hill at the back of our property. At that time, 9 out of the 10 stalls had been slowly converted to “storage” over the years, but for as long as I can remember, Spook occupied the second stall on the right. 

I spent the next three years in that barn, working long hours and late nights — slowly building the confidence to create art I was willing to share with the world.

I fed Spook a lot of carrots and apples during that time. I told him a lot of secrets: about my hopes and dreams, and my fears and worries.

When Spook died late last year (just after I’d moved home), I suggested to my grandma that we plant a tree in his paddock. That evening, I meditated on the idea, and realized that a tree was only the beginning. I proposed to my grandma that we make the entire hillside into “Spook’s Garden.”