“Woven Histories” is a mural that was painted in a school in San Pablo La Lagoona, Guatemala on Lake Atitlan. This portion of the school was built as an outreach program for the Cosmic Convergence Festival. A workshop with the children was conducted to gather what was important to them within their community. They had decided on family, the cosmic woman, culture, and nature. With these ideas, I photographed women within the community and their textile patterns. This area of Guatemala is known for its vast and deep history of textiles and the Mayan influence that remains within their language. They learn Spanish as a second language, but all speak different Mayan dialects as their first.

Showing the transmutation of this culture, the ideas of Mayan glyphs and textiles show a connection between the cosmic women and their generations. This culture is flowing from the youngest member of their family and their paintbrush, symbolizing creativity and the function it has within these important values of family and culture. The glyphs mean the following words and ideas: god, sacred, sun, spirit, holy, fire, and woman. The mural and project are in place to serve as a creative space for the young members of this community and stand as a space of creation and inspiration. In a day where many of their cultural traditions are threatened, it is important that they are surrounded by positive reminders of their rich traditions that can turn to creative and vibrant futures.

This was painted in 2.5 days, acrylic and spray paint

Roughly 10’x11’

January 2020

The Distance Between Us was painting was created live at Dancefestopia 2019. On an 8’x8’ scale, this black light reactive painting took about 40 hours to complete over three days.

This piece is near and dear to my heart. It’s about the relationship that couldn’t happen due to distance, circumstance, or a predetermined expiration date. It’s the separation of mountains and oceans. It’s that instant connection and a book you want to finish but a page you can’t turn. It’s a connection that would have you crashing in the waves of feelings and willing to climb mountains. It’s the rock on which you want to build your future. It’s about the acceptance of detachment that you develop when you know you must move on. A lot of people thought it was about love and connection, and yes it about all of that. But most of all, it’s about the fact that we always seek for this although it can’t always happen.

The Distance Between Us

8’x8’

acrylic on ply wood

September 2019

In Thailand, most of the silent workforce is comprised of Burmese migrants. These low paid workers typically live in work camps that are overcrowded and dirty, often with scarce access to much food or quality drinkable water. Due to the long and turbulent history between Thai and Burmese people, the children of these working migrants are left out of the Thai school system. Because they are unable to speak Thai fluently, they are forced to fend for themselves all day long in the work camps while their parents work for about 300 bhat or $10 US.

While in Thailand, I came across the good shepherd foundations website. After a bit of searching, I became aware of all the good that they do within this community and others. St. Euphrasia’s BanYa Literacy Center is only one of many different sectors of public works that the good Shepard foundation is a part of. Typically, I don’t like to support religious run charities because I have felt that they only help with the guise of conversion, but this literacy center is run very differently. With every religion represented in the school, this program teaches 250 Burmese children that would be uneducated otherwise. It provides them with clean water and 2 meals weekly. They do not teach religion, but they do teach these children the Burmese curriculum, the Thai language, and English. These skills are so incredibly valuable because they begin to set the children up for a future that is brighter than the reality that they currently live.

These children quickly blew me away by their sheer eagerness to learn, some getting up at 5 in the morning to be one of the first of six trips the centers bus/van makes daily. These children don’t have to attend this school, but they show extreme dedication and joy in learning… even if it’s in an open air school with no air conditioning. The school takes interns from around the world in order to help teach and put the children’s English to practice.

Before starting the mural, a walk through of the school really gave me a feel for the conditions that these children live and learn in. Making the dire need for relocation to a larger facility apparent, so the decision was made to create the mural on panels that would be movable in the event of relocation. I wanted to create something that way joyful, playful, but meaningful in its symbols and composition. I knew that I wanted to have some children help me with a portion of the mural as well. With five student volunteers, they helped me paint the background… allowing their creative juices to flow and create on the large 10 x 10 foot canvas. After their contribution, I began sketching.

Lotus flowers are symbols of rebirth, beauty, and growing through hard times or muddy water. These are important symbols through the whole of Asia as well Hinduism and Buddhism. The elephant is also important in these religions as well as Thailand specifically. You often see elephants roaming the streets. Yellow was chosen for the lotuses, as it is the present royal color of the king. These lotuses frame the elephant acting as a crown and collar, regal signs of adornment. The blue color of the elephant represents the monarchy of Thailand. The butterflies act as omens of good luck. But the specific butterfly that is shown was the first thing I saw in my room while arriving to Phuket. This butterfly laid their motionless, and thinking it was dead, I did nothing. Two days later, I see the same butterfly moving its wings. After letting it outside, I realized that rather than just a dead butterfly, this was a symbol of the good things to come and resurrection of life. This is a common theme in Christianity, so it was fitting to include this omen within the work. The composition is symmetrical and central, mirroring that of the common design of Christian and catholic altarpieces. I then included Islamic tile patterning within the detail work of the piece. These symbols and considerations make an effort to represent every major religion of the world, becoming a universal sign of positivity and leaving each and every child a possible connection to the work.

My goal was to help beautify the space within the school to show these children that people do care enough to beautify their space, as studies show that the spaces that we work and learn in directly affect our ability to do so. Working within the school allowed me to see the curiosity and hope that art can bring to people across all language and cultural barriers. On the verge of tears multiple times, this mural allowed me to see the impact that art can have within an entirely new capacity; more meaningful than the spaces within museum walls and the farthest away you can get from the upper echelons of society. It created new goals for me, making a new effort to continue creating within these kinds of spaces or possibly working to volunteer in one of these kinds of centers to involve the kids more in the creative process.

10’ x 10’
Regal blossom 

mural at the St. Euphrasia BanYa Literacy Centre in Phuket Thailand

June 2019

Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of wisdom, knowledge and art. This mural is approximately 8’ X 10’ And was painted in one day with materials that were found at a local hardware store. Located in the city of Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, this mural was inspired by the goddesses festival the week I arrived to the island. Painted off the beaten path, on the way to the waterfall, this mural acts as a secret tribute and hidden gem in nature. 

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

May 2019

Birds of Paradise was my first ever mural painted live and on site at ManaFest in Limon, Costa Rica. It was my first time live painting in another country, and my first time using spray paint. Being many first, it presented unique and logistical challenges along the way. The composition was created entirely on site as the planning that normally goes into my paintings was unusable for this environment.

Limon, Costa Rica

February 2019

Before coming to Copenhagen, a long layover in Dubai presented unique challenges for my mental condition. After being detained for having common personal items, Scandinavia proved to be in stark contrast from the Middle East, providing a liberal and free environment that is conducive to creation. After being in a weird mental funk, I was itching to get my hands into some physical paint. I traveled to Norway for a festival, and then denmark shortly after to visit friends. All of my friends were eager to show me one location- Christiania. This anarchist society is the only place in Denmark to avoid taxes entirely and legalize all recreational soft drugs. This environment welcomes all kinds of street art and was a perfect place to paint a mural of whatever I please.

Without any kind of idea or guidance, I decided to create a small painting of the first drawing that I ever made: a tree with a dna strand as the trunk. Although in a creative block, revisiting this composition allowed me to play with the existing artwork around the site, as well as extending the tree into multiple dimensions.

There were challenges rendering the painting on a highly textured brick surface as well as being mindful not to cover the artwork existing around the composition. Unlike most of the compositions that I create, the tree is anything but symmetrical. It leans starkly to one side and invades my zones of comfort. It embraces the scheme of a limited color palette that I have recently been exploring, playing with the sun in metallics and fading seamlessly into the brick that surrounds it.

tree of life

9’ x 6’

July 2019

Christiania, Denmark