The Secret Language of the Forest (as written by the jewel beetle) is an eighty-eight-foot scroll made up of nineteen distinct passages, created as a way of recording my time with the forest. Working with oil paint, ink, mica, paper, and raw canvas, I approached the piece like a visual journal, allowing materials to build up in response to what I was experiencing: shifting light through leaves, wind in the trees, insect paths, root systems, and moments of complexity where all of my senses were triggered simultaneously. The scroll format mirrored this experience without a clear beginning or ending (everything all at once), unfolding as a continuous dream-like narrative.

The jewel beetle was my symbolic guide and spiritual witness throughout this time. Its iridescent body and intricate trail systems felt like a form of writing across the landscape. What’s especially disturbing about the jewel beetle is that it embeds beneath the bark of a tree, slowly interrupting its ability to survive. That nearly invisible process became an important conceptual layer in the work; a reflection on how change, loss and transformation sometimes happen gradually, buried deeply; a denial of sorts:

This work took over six months to complete, and during that time my best friend (and chosen family) was living with a devastating and terminal illness. That experience shaped everything I was experiencing. There is an undercurrent of trying to hold time, to create space for this person through the act of making, of witnessing, grieving, and remembering. The scroll became a place to sit with this complexity. Where life and loss, love and fear, hope and contradiction fight for equal space. And where the forest agrees to carry this burden.