When I think of the phrase “climate change,” I yearn to precede it with the word emotional, as in “emotional climate change.” The current and looming impacts of the climate crisis have left so many of us anxious or depressed about the future, and too many people have given up on the idea that we can collectively confront climate change and live in right relationship with each other and the earth. My art focuses on asking, what if we, or many of us, believed that it is possible to heal our ecological crisis? And what if the path to healing is through imagining the future we want and full-heartedly believing it to be possible?

The palette in my abstract paintings holds specific meaning that resonates with me personally. I assign a color to how I want to feel about various aspects of living in society, including health, democracy, housing, ecological practices, and more. Lavender is peaceful and represents health, mauve is collaborative and represents democracy, and so on. The colors reflect the positive ways I want to experience living in society; affirming human rights and a healed earth. I lay in colors in my compositions in ways that conjure joy and satisfaction, as a metaphor for what could be possible when it comes to creating a society and environment that is healthy, clean and safe for all.

I incorporate shapes that symbolize threads, braids or weavings as a nod to the idea that we can be stronger and more stable when we intertwine diverse ideas. These shapes also imply how health, democracy, housing, and ecological practices could intersect and strengthen each other. Phrases within the paintings add specificity and convey what I imagine and wish for ourselves and earth: clean and safe places for everyone to live, a future based on clean energy and human rights, indigenous land management and ownership, and a healthy, reciprocal relationship between humans and earth.

By combining uplifting colors, shapes and text, my paintings reach for what it feels like to have a healed relationship with each other and with earth through an abstract approach. Guiding the conversation to a more imaginative space, asking what would be better than our current reality, is a way that I hope to connect with how many are feeling, and to inspire conversations that could catalyze a change in our emotional and physical climates.