The spring of 2020 has been like a new version of spring 2017 when my partner had emergency open-heart surgery. Both years seem to have been carried by frightening events completely out of my control. 2017 went on for me to be a year of extreme gratitude, the surgery a success.

The interesting difference in 2020 is that anxiety and uncertainty are not just my own private worry - it's being experienced throughout the world in everyones lives.

I have ended up making elaborately carved woodblock prints of trees during both springs - both with quite a bit more stillness and quiet than is usual in my work. I didn't plan these to be ways to take my mind off events - but the carving and printing process has, in both situations, felt like a calm current of stability, needed, and welcomed.