all is yours when the morning comes
These works engage with the pull of the unknown, vacillating between what was, what is, and what could be. I made this work during a season of intense and rapid change that touched every aspect of my life, public and private, which also coincided with a near drowning experience from a kayaking accident. While I am typically resistant to creating work that is overtly autobiographical, this year it was impossible to divorce my practice from the messiness of healing while being haunted by the emotional intensity of grief.
Central to the work are images from the tarot, which add a mystical, surreal layer. In previous writings a few years earlier, I noted that:
One rarely consults a tarot deck or a tarot reader when they feel confident about where things are heading in their life. It takes on much more significance when it confirms something we are anxious or hopeful about – you will get that job, you will meet the love of your life, odds are good that the year will be a prosperous one, et cetera. Visions, voices, or messages from beyond tend to find us more readily when we experience grief and loss. Speaking to spirits is an alternative form of connection when we are lonely and our relationships with the living feel strained, tenuous, or nonexistent.
In ghost stories, voices from the beyond or the past may return to bring messages of importance, or offer care, warning, and protection; this voice from my past self feels especially poignant right now. During a recent tarot reading with a medium that I sought out in my grief, she reported my spirit guides appeared in the form of mud people from the bottom of the river. To me it suggests that insight comes from messy, earthy experience, not just intellectual musing, which as a rational, academically-inclined person I struggle to accept.
This is also a work of becoming and a resurrection from numbness. Of the self from behind the masks of wife, lover, teacher, public servant, good woman. Of asking, again and again and again:
Who was I before I was theirs?
And who will I be now that the current has me?
—
all is yours when the morning comes was presented at Rachel Ralph Gallery from September 27 - November 9, 2025 in the solo exhibition “all is yours when the morning comes” curated by Rachel Ralph.
the empress, 2025, Mixed media on linen-wrapped board. Duotone self-portrait of the artist’s yellow/pink/white aura on vellum. Tarot card drawing with pastel, pen, found coloring book pages, found sticker., 16” x 20”
two of swords, 2025, Mixed media on linen-wrapped board. Duotone archival photograph printed on vellum of the shadows of the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 observed at 65% totality at 39° North latitude. Tarot card drawing with pastel, graphite, pen, found coloring book pages, found sticker., 16” x 20”
death + ten of swords, 2025, Mixed media on linen-wrapped board. Duotone archival photograph printed on vellum taken from the right bank of the Arkansas River approximately 1 mile downstream from the F Street Bridge takeout in Salida, CO on June 19, 2024. On June 18, 2024 – a record-setting high water month – the artist missed the takeout while piloting an inflatable two-person kayak, i.e. a “duckie”. She had given her wet suit to her friend, and was wearing waterproof splash pants at the time; no helmet. The splash pants immediately filled with water, making it impossible to muster the upper body strength to flip the boat (yet the artist hadn’t realized this yet). The newly-installed whitewater surf wave park .75 miles downstream from the bridge proved to be unnavigable. The artist came-to at the bottom of the river. Without a boat or a paddle, wearing a PFD rated for a woman weighing 90-130 lbs. and water-logged splash pants that made the artist weigh approximately 300 lbs., she couldn’t keep her head above water. As the roaring current and the weight of her water-logged pants urgently pulled her head down past the shoulders of her PFD, she resigned herself to drown until a voice told her it wasn’t her time yet. It boomed, “Swim left! Now! You must not miss this takeout.” The artist clawed herself up a steep, muddy river bank just enough to breathe and vomit up water. Moments later, the man who would soon become her ex-husband bounded through the woods to pull her out of the river, but not save her. She did that herself. Tarot card drawing with pastel, graphite, pen, found coloring book pages, found sticker. 8” x 10” and 16” x 20”
three of swords, 2025, Mixed media on linen-wrapped board. Duotone archival portrait of Birdie taken at our new home at 710 East 1st Street, Denver, CO on September 28, 2024. Tarot card drawing with pastel, graphite, pen, found coloring book pages. 16” x 20”
the emperor, 2025, Mixed media on linen-wrapped board. Duotone archival portrait of the Seated Statue of Hatshepsut, New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, ca. 1479–1458 B.C. at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. This image of Hapshetsut leaves no doubt about her status as Pharaoh. On her head, she wears the soft khat headcloth donned exclusively by Egyptian kings. The artist first met this sculpture of Hatshepsut in Gallery 115 when she was seven years old. She has communed with it upon every visit she has made to New York since, with the exception of July 10, 2025 while the gallery was closed for cleaning. Tarot card drawing with pastel, graphite, pen, found coloring book pages, found sticker. 16” x 20”
the moon, 2025, Mixed media on linen-wrapped board. Duotone archival photograph taken portside from first class approximately 45 minutes before touchdown on United Airlines flight 1488 from Denver, CO to Miami, FL on April 16, 2025. The artist was bound for Miami Zine Fair. Before leaving for the airport she had a premonition, “I feel like I will meet a man today, perhaps a wine merchant.” It was a weird thought. While seated in seat 3A on the aircraft, a handsome man wearing glasses approached. She learns he sells wine and enjoys a nice Riesling with sushi. He leaves her his phone number scrawled on half a piece of notebook paper on his seat as he departs. Tarot card drawing with pastel, graphite, pen, found coloring book pages, found sticker. 16” x 20”
Exhibition overview of "all is yours when the morning comes" at Rachel Ralph Gallery, Denver, CO
the baby chick, 2025, Mixed media installation; silk ribbon stained with Sangre de Grado in the form of the artist’s type A+ blood, artist’s writing, Tarot card drawing of the Six of Cups card on paper; pastel, pen, found coloring book pages, found sticker on linen-wrapped board. Dimensions variable
the baby chick, 2025, Mixed media installation; silk ribbon stained with Sangre de Grado in the form of the artist’s type A+ blood, artist’s writing, Tarot card drawing of the Six of Cups card on paper; pastel, pen, found coloring book pages, found sticker on linen-wrapped board. Dimensions variable
september veils, 2025, Collage on linen-wrapped board with duotone photographs and archival wedding portrait, 24.75” x 35”
september veils, 2025, Collage on linen-wrapped board with duotone photographs and archival wedding portrait, 24.75” x 35”
June 18, 2024, 2024, Dual-sided collage on paper with found illustrations and Arkansas River Headwaters daily parking pass, 6.5” x 12.5”
June 18, 2024, 2024, Dual-sided collage on paper with found illustrations and Arkansas River Headwaters daily parking pass, 6.5” x 12.5”