Seed Pod

This series began with a vision.

Seed pods hanging from the ceiling.

Suspended forms turning slowly in the air.

After that image appeared, I began noticing them everywhere.

Mesquite pods splitting open along the branches.

Oleander seeds drifting through the wind.

Tiny forms released in numbers almost too large to perceive.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Millions.

Nature produces far more life than is needed for survival.

Seeds fall in such abundance they carpet the ground and drift through the air unnoticed.

The deeper pattern visible in nature is not scarcity.

It is fertility.

Seed Pod begins by turning attention back to the quiet evidence unfolding all around us.

Pods opening.

Seeds releasing.

Life reproducing itself again and again.

Instead of focusing on extinction,

this work asks us to notice something else.

The millions of seeds.

Seed Pod began with a vision I did not fully understand.

The image appeared suddenly — seed pods suspended from the ceiling, enlarged beyond their natural scale and turning slowly in the air.

After that moment, I began noticing seeds everywhere.

Mesquite pods splitting open along the branches.

Oleander seeds drifting through the wind.

Tiny forms releasing in numbers almost too large to perceive.

What began as a vision became an extended period of observation — looking closely at the quiet fertility present in the landscape.

Three forces are currently shaping the investigation.

Vision & Exploration

The installation vision arrived the moment I observed with presence the mesquite tree seed pod, split open in her beauty.

Only later did I begin recognizing how frequently seeds appear in the natural landscape and how easily their abundance goes unnoticed.

Standing beneath desert trees during seed season reveals thousands of small forms drifting through the air, gathering across the ground, and accumulating in layers beneath the branches.

These observations began shaping the spatial ideas for the installation — environments where the overlooked abundance of seeds becomes visible.

Material Exploration

To begin understanding the installation more fully, I started experimenting with materials in the studio.

Early studies layer soil, seeds, and compost collected from my yard directly into the surface of the paintings. Fragments of eggshell, dried plant matter, and organic debris become embedded within textured grounds.

These materials are stabilized with paint, paper, and metal leaf, creating dense surfaces where multiple layers of life accumulate in a single image.

The process mirrors the landscapes that inspired the work — environments where countless seeds exist simultaneously, often too many to perceive individually.

Emergent Works

Two works are currently in development as part of this investigation.

Rather than depicting seed pods directly, these paintings explore texture, density, and layered perception — translating the experience of standing inside a landscape where fertility is unfolding at an overwhelming scale.

These early studies function as prototypes for the installation environments that first appeared in the original vision.

Through the process of making, the spatial direction of the project continues to clarify.

The investigation is beginning to take form through the first works in the series.

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Field of Flowers (seeds)

This piece began with the urge to create real texture from the multiplicity of seeds.

It started with collecting.

Collecting matters.

I began gathering seeds, crushing them into my hands and placing them into a bowl. I did this with my son. As we worked, compost found its way into the mixture. Eggshells, stems, and fragments of plants were added as well.

All of it belongs.

That is the nature of abundance and regeneration.

These materials became the base of the piece — embedded directly into the surface so that the painting begins with the same organic matter that produces new life in the landscape.

After sealing the seeds and compost into the ground layer, the surface was covered with layers of metal leaf — gold, white gold, and silver — along with touches of glass glitter.

The image is only beginning to take shape.

Like the other works in this investigation, the painting functions as a study. Through the process of making, it allows me to better understand the installation vision that first appeared.

The surface holds the earliest steps toward translating that vision into material form.

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Year

2026

Materials

seeds, soil, compost, gold leaf, dyed silver leaf

Dimensions

40 x 40

Status

In Process

Slide to see the previously finished piece

Forest of Seeds

Forest of Seeds began with a desire to capture the moment that exemplifies the abundance of nature — if we were able to see everything all at once.

Looking through the crisscrossing branches of the sage plant, there are hundreds of stems branching again and again, carrying flowers and seeds. The depth of that image feels almost infinite.

When the space is compressed and everything is included at once, the experience begins to shift. Instead of focusing on a single branch or form, you begin to feel the overwhelming density of life present within the plant.

The painting began by building texture across the surface — layering metal leaf and paint to create the sensation of multiple depths existing together.

The intention was to translate the experience of standing inside that network of branches, where the accumulation of forms begins to suggest something much larger than a single plant.

Over time the image began to resemble a forest.

Whether the viewer experiences a plant, a forest, or something else entirely is left open.

What remains constant is the sensation of abundance.

Year

2026

Materials

oil paint, gold leaf, silver leaf, mixed metal leaf, molding paste, glass glitter, mica powder, on wood

Dimensions

30 x 20

Status

Complete

Slide to see the previously finished piece

From Surface to Space

The Seed Pod paintings began as material experiments.

Layers of soil, compost, seeds, and plant matter were embedded into the surface, then stabilized with paint, paper, and metal leaf. These works compress depth into a single plane.

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Seeds.

Soil.

Fragments of organic life.

Multiple layers existing at once — the same way countless seeds exist simultaneously within a single landscape.

What first appears as texture slowly reveals itself as accumulation.

A field of tiny forms.

An ecosystem condensed into a surface.

Through this process the paintings began pointing beyond themselves.

They became early studies for the installation environments imagined in the initial vision — spaces where the quiet abundance of seeds can be experienced spatially rather than symbolically.

Inside the installation, the compression of the paintings unfolds again into three dimensions.

Seed pods expand beyond their natural scale.

Suspended forms rotate slowly overhead.

Seeds drift through the air and gather across the ground.

Light moves across translucent surfaces, revealing shifting layers as visitors walk through the space.

What begins as observation gradually becomes immersion.

The exhibition ultimately leads visitors outside.

After moving through the installation environments, the final transition returns to the living landscape itself — a quiet place to sit, lie beneath the trees, and look upward through the branches.

The intention is not to recreate nature.

It is to restore attention.

To recognize the overwhelming abundance that was always present.

Seeds falling.

Plants releasing life in numbers far beyond necessity.

The quiet intelligence of the living world continuously regenerating itself.

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Participation

For Collectors

Collectors interested in acquiring available works are welcome to inquire.

Paintings and material studies occasionally become available as these investigations continue to evolve.

Collectors who wish to follow the work more closely are also invited to join the Collector’s Circle.

Enter the Collector’s Circle

FOR CURATORS, INSTITUTIONS, AND COLLABORATING ARTISTS

These investigations are evolving toward large-scale installation environments.

Exhibition inquiries, institutional partnerships, and artistic collaborations are welcome.

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