YEAR: 2020
START DATE: July 6, 2020
END DATE: August 16, 2020

Tangled wires and a woodpecker on a steel pole. Was to be about SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL but then came to be about trees. TREES became a big theme. Parent/child responsibilities through the decades. The opposite of beauty. Destruction of nature. Let Me Walk in Beauty. Lakota Sioux. Possibly Chief Yellow Lark. Public Parks. Trust for Public Land Project. Creative process. Flowers. Trees. Who lives in trees? Loss. Black veil collage. Covid-19. Candy Dickenson Becher-  a friend from Columbus - loses her Mom. We once again become the drop that we are. Gretchen Dykstra’s double mastectomy. Dream about Mom and Dad. Breast cancer and friends. Words don’t knock. God laughs at plans. 29 Pieces planning. Cardinals flying school. Cardinal collages. Sibyl Dana Reynolds and me. Institutional breakdowns. Covid-19 at the shopping mall. One perfect journal. Black Lives Matter. BLM collage. Meditations on parents and on children. Dad, potatoes and pride. “And she got an artist.” Responsibilities of a child by period in a life. Gretchen Dykstra’s kimono. Gretchen photo. Gretchen and Lorraine story. Friendships. Bringing the past to the present. The trees. Trees Before. Trees After. Neighbor dispute over trees. Dissolve or manifest as a life choice. Extending my spirit into the world. Contagious grace. Beauty as attribute, commodity, trophy, lure, cultural ideal, object of vilification for those denied beauty. Commodification of beauty. TRUE BEAUTY. Sex and conquest. Tree quotes. Destruction in the yard next door. I lost my shit. Do trees have the capacity to haunt? Legend says yes. Family of trees. Trees became the theme.

Candy Dickenson Becher’s mom dies, Gretchen Dykstra double mastectomy. 29 Pieces and Trust for Public Land Project. Kelly’s Mom and health issues. First time to hire an attorney - in a dispute with neighbor about trees.

It was the summer of Covid-19 pandemic. I’d intended to do a journal titled SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL, but a lot of other thoughts jammed their way in. Heated rush of tangled wires to organize. Trees, friend’s illness, loss, parent-child relationship, responsibility of a child to parents. Thoughts about beauty and vanity. A great deal of time and energy put into the subject of trees and grieving for all the trees lost next door. The necessity of trees.

Six nature based murals for Dallas ISD schools - partnership with Trust for Public Land Cool Schools Project. Because of Covid -19, we had to rethink how to do our THRIVE Lesson with students at six elementary schools in Dallas ISD. I worked with photographer and videographer Danny Fulgencio to create a 4 minute video for the students to watch, rather than presenting in a class. Preparing teacher trainings via Region 10 Education Service Center.