The Art of Transformation
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
—Joseph Campbell
“Why ask art into a life at all, if not to be transformed and enlarged by its presence and mysterious means? By changing selves, one by one, art changes also the outer world that selves create and share.”
— Jane Hirshfield
Art seeps into us, as if through tiny crevices we weren’t fully aware of. The song you listen to obsessively. The painting you can’t take your eyes off of. The line of poetry that makes you gasp.
Art bypasses logic and hits us somewhere instinctive: the heart, the gut, the watering mouth, the clotted throat suddenly holding back tears.
Making it can feel like becoming a garden in full bloom, but it can also feel like setting yourself on fire. Communing with it can crack the armor you wear as protection.
What a gift, in a world that wants you numb.
I’m fascinated by art, and how we allow it to shape our lives, because I’m fascinated by how things change.
We’re in a moment of profound transformation as a species, and the pace at which we’re called to dismantle our old identities and embrace radical new possibilities is breakneck.
Art helps. It opens us to the beauty inherent in impermanence, the eros that accompanies the ache, the thrill and the terror, the capacity to swim the chasms of our despair without getting stuck there.
About My Work
My own winding path has led through writing, yoga teaching, Buddhist studies, visual art, and activism. The central thread is a longing to understand the process of transformation.
In my visual art, this often means coating paintings in wax, then stripping and distressing them until the painting is partially destroyed, making a path to a new one that could never have existed.
In my book art, this involves taking a found text, or pages already begun by collaborators, and painting over them — obliterating the old meaning to reveal a new one.
In my writing, this shows up as a frequent interest in reckoning with themes of transformation, liminality, uncertainty, and memory.
In my teaching and 1:1 healing sessions, I incorporate an ever-evolving mix of meditation, dharma and myth, movement, visualization, breathwork, writing prompts, art experiments, ritual, and energy healing, all with an aim to connect you more deeply to your own embodied channel, so you can co-create with frequencies of possibility, feel supported as you alchemize fear into courage, and live into your unique and wild life.
