The Dark Leaves.

What luck to land a 12-day residency at Monson Arts in Maine early November 2020! Along with three writers and one other visual artist, I lived, worked, and ate separately during this cautious Covid session.

Next to "my house" stood maple saplings with yin-yang leaves that I'd never seen before – almost black on one side, and almost white on the other. Inspired, I gathered them up for the studio. I'd already brought dying sunflowers from my garden because of their intriguing shapes. No plan in mind, simple intuition.

I started photographing the leaves, combining them with my decades-old collage bits, and could not stop. In far north Maine, the light faded in early afternoon, and my mood began to darken as well.

In retrospect, my state of mind was a long time coming. I lost many important people in my life over the past year, including my father. That energy poured into creating The Dark Leaves.