2025 Solo Exhibit: Guardians
As a member of Full Circle Nine Gallery in Indianapolis, I was given the opportunity to be the featured artist for the month of December 2025 and to put together my first themed solo exhibition. Thus my show “Guardians” was born. It was comprised of five brand new pyrography artworks along with five existing pieces and explored traditional and unexpected ideas of protection and those who do the protecting.
Some ancient Celtic cultures revered the Dervonna, the spirit of the oak. As the tree’s personified living essence, I imagine her as a tender to groves, a cultivator, showing the trees where to dig in their roots for more water and where to spread out their leaves to catch more sunlight. Maybe she even facilitates the larger forest community, telling the squirrels when they are allowed to begin harvesting the acorns, the birds where the best places to build their nests will be. And I imagine her mourning when one of her beloved friends has fallen (or been felled).
There are some complicated feelings for me, knowing that it is fallen trees out of which I make my art. I make every effort to choose my wood from sustainable sources, opting whenever possible for wood that’s been salvaged or reclaimed. I am a lover of trees and forests, and my preference would always be to see a live tree. My hope is that my work amplifies the essence of a thing that was beautiful in its own right while alive, and to responsibly use what is left when a tree has fallen.
DERVONNA
PRIDE
The lioness is the backbone of the pride. The females do the hunting and child-raising, and even play a role in defending their family from other predators - including other lions.
THE GHOST SHIP OF THE HUDSON
The Ghost Ship glides down the Hudson River, they say, with no sails on its masts and no visible crew. Some report that it glows, or even that it floats above the water. Some familiar with details of its appearance link the legend with the infamous “Flying Dutchman,” as it seems most agree that the vessel’s visage puts it in line with Holland’s shipbuilding practices. But many think it most likely to be an apparition of the “Halve Maen” (Dutch for “Half Moon”), the jacht of Henry Hudson himself.
Some of the accounts I came across say the ship appears during lightning storms. Others more vaguely referenced that it shows up “when it’s unwise to be on the water.” Either way, most portrayals made it out as an omen of bad luck, but I wonder if ill omens are simply warnings meant to protect us mere mortals.
THE LADY OF THE LAKE
Arthurian legend is convoluted and multifaceted, as there are many versions of his various adventures. Those of us of a certain age think of King Arthur as a peasant boy who became king when he pulled the sword Excalibur from a stone, thanks to the Disney movie. But I’m drawn to the versions that include a Lady of the Lake who gives Arthur his legendary sword - the realm’s protector granted his authority and very ability to protect by a mysterious, magical woman.
THISTLE
The thistle has learned to protect itself. Its prickles and sharp-edged leaves protect it from herbivores while it grows and lets it seeds mature.
SKY WOMAN
Look up the word “spéirbhean” in an Irish-to-English dictionary, and you’ll see the translation given as “a beautiful woman.” But if you look up the entry just above it, you’ll see one of its composite words, “spéir,” defined as “the sky.”
When I first stumbled across this linguistic glimmer, I was immediately taken with the idea that a woman of beauty to the Irish could be compared with something as expansive and changeable as the sky. Her warm, nurturing presence like the sun, the moon ruling her fertility cycles and giving her an aura of magnetism, the stars a stand-in for her sparkle and guiding intuition. All things airy and bright, two other definitions for the word “spéir.” But the sky is also given to powerful storms, a potentially destructive force, but I like to think of the way lightning catches fire to dead undergrowth that needs cleared out to make way for new things to take root and bring balance back to the ecosystem.
SCÁTHACH
In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, Scáthach is an accomplished female warrior. She takes in young ones who show promise and trains them in combat at her fortress on the Isle of Skye off the coast of Scotland. Her name in the Irish language means “Shadowy One,” and her character is indeed largely mysterious. The stories we have left mostly centered around her students of renown, primarily the hero of Ulster, Cú Chulainn.
THE PRINCESS, THE TOWER, THE DRAGON
“I am the princess, the tower, the dragon,” sings Zambian-Irish musician Denise Chaila in her song “Down.” The song has become a personal anthem, equal parts celebration of women’s empowerment and of fantasy and pop-culture fandoms. I adore Denise’s command of the visuals she invokes in that line, taking the damsel in distress trope and flipping it inside-out, each element becoming not a symbol of entrapment or endangerment, but of her own sovereignty.
EPONA
Epona was the horse goddess to the ancient Celts, eventually adopted by the Romans. Her role as patroness and caretaker of horses within Celtic society meant that her domain extended not only over battle and victory, but also over produce and agricultural bounty, since the Celts used horses for farming in addition to warfare.
GRIAN
“Grian” is the Irish word for sun, and this is my take on a solar patroness. If the earth is like a mother to humanity and all other living beings, perhaps one way to view the sun is as a sort of grandmother. We are held in such precarious balance within her sphere of influence, living in constant danger of straying into her burning wrath or drifting away into frigid indifference. But for the moment, she lovingly bathes us in her nurturing radiance.
