FOR THOSE WHO BEAR WITNESS

­Here we all are, together­

There are many ways I can think of that love looks like. Sometimes it looks like a garden tomato, or a shared meal, sometimes it looks like a postcard in the mail. Sometimes it looks like the tracks that snails left for us overnight on sidewalks, or sacred datura opening for the moon. Sometimes it looks the way a trail in the forest does: a collection of anonymous shared footprints that go somewhere that many somebodies thought was special. Sometimes it looks the way the sky does, once it finishes raining. Sometimes it looks like stopping to look around and say ‘wow’. Sometimes, it looks like this.

To me, love always looks like remembering about our communities, communities that are so much broader than just our human neighbors. In our beloved valley, here, the community is the boulders and the scrub oaks, the cliffs, the meadow on the mountaintop, the vast remainder of the inland ocean that we call the Great Salt Lake. The seagulls, the snakes. The owls, the mountain lions. Love looks like remembering that we are a tiny part of a big, unknowable something. Love looks like continuing to care, continuing to bear witness, even when it is hard.

At this moment we are watching as an era unfolds. Wildfires, inversion, dust storms – all of these things obscure the air, hiding landscapes (our context, our home) within them. We are unable to see into the distance, to think about time and space and infinite chances. The world as we know it is condensed to a bubble of our immediate surroundings. As we acknowledge our changing landscapes, we must also acknowledge our grief. These paintings are asking what it feels like to hold grief and hope simultaneously, alongside one another. These paintings ask if perhaps they are the same thing, two sides of the same coin. Can we continue to walk during the slow motion unfolding (despite, in spite) and continue to bear witness, with all of our grief and all of our hope? Can we remember that we are small among the ancient others who bear witness alongside us?

prices listed for originals, all paintings (except those with embroidery thread) available as high quality canvas giclee reproductions - contact via carozobservations@gmail.com for inquiries