Every artist has an origin story, a moment when possibility became reality. For me, that moment happened in front of a blank 6"x8" canvas panel with a photograph of Malibu Creek State Park and a box of brand-new art supplies I wasn't entirely sure how to use.

I had just returned from a trip to California, and the landscape had completely captivated me. Everywhere I looked, there was something worth painting: the golden hills, the way the light fell across the terrain, the particular quality of California's atmosphere that feels different from anywhere else. The whole time I was there, I felt this insistent pull to paint, to somehow capture what I was seeing and feeling.

There are certain places that have a way of settling something inside you. For me, the Haw River is one of those places. This particular stretch, on one of my favorite trails in North Carolina, has become a kind of sanctuary—a place I return to when I need to reset, to breathe, to remember what matters.

What I love most about the Haw is its character. It's not a wide, dramatic river; it's intimate and complex, full of rocky islands and grassy tufts that create their own little ecosystems. The rocks rise up in clusters, weathered and solid, dividing the current into channels and eddies. In summer, the water moves lazily around them, reflecting everything—sky, trees, stones—in a shimmering, ever-changing surface.

There's a particular moment at daybreak that has always captivated me—that fleeting transition when the world begins to emerge from the near-monochrome of night and slowly remembers its color. It's not quite sunrise, not quite darkness, but something in between. A threshold. When I set out to paint Shallowbag Bay in Manteo, North Carolina, it was this elusive moment I wanted to capture.

Sometimes a scene stays with you long after the moment has passed. Years ago, while vacationing in Oregon's Willamette Valley, I photographed a magnificent oak tree arching gracefully over a sun-dappled path. The image lingered in my mind—not because of any profound experience attached to it, but simply because the tree was beautiful. The way its massive trunk and branches swooped overhead felt almost protective, and the patterns of light filtering through the canopy created something worth remembering.

Living in North Carolina, I didn't have the opportunity to return to Oregon and paint this scene plein air. But I kept thinking about that tree, and eventually I knew I needed to paint it. At 16"x20", this would be the largest painting I had attempted at the time, so I approached it with patience and care, spending about 12 to 15 hours building up the layers and working through the challenges.

On the same crisp morning that drew me back to Bluestem Conservation Cemetery for the "Paint it Orange" Plein Air Paint Out Event, I found myself standing in a different corner of the property, looking in a new direction. The golden narrowleaf sunflowers were still there—my favorite color, impossible to ignore—but this time, I was captivated by something else: a majestic loblolly pine, its branches reaching upward with an almost protective grace, overlooking the field of native plants below.

The more I stood with this view, the more I began to think about what makes Bluestem such a special place. It's a conservation cemetery—a natural burial ground where native plants and wildlife thrive, and where families choose to lay their loved ones to rest within this living, growing landscape. The pairing feels almost perfect, like something that should have always existed. There's a profound peace in a place that honors both nature and human life in equal measure, where reverence flows in two directions at once.

When I arrived at Bluestem Conservation Cemetery on a crisp fall morning for the Orange County Arts Commission's "Paint it Orange" Plein Air Paint Out Event, I wasn't sure what I'd find. What I discovered was nothing short of breathtaking—an entire field ablaze with golden narrowleaf sunflowers, native wildflowers that seemed to be cascading across the landscape like a warm, undulating wave. I wasn't alone in noticing their beauty; everywhere I looked, artists were setting up easels and preparing their palettes, all drawn to the same mesmerizing scene.