As far back as I can remember, I have been obsessed with the natural world. Before I was old enough to start school, my grandma started to teach me to read and write while babysitting my brother and I. When I was 7 years old, I started making books and binders filled with facts about plants, animals, minerals, history, etc. A lot of the information came from natural history books that I checked out from the library, but some also came from my own observations from being around plants and animals. These field journals are foundational to my childhood and the person that I have become.

It is very difficult to explain my fascination with the natural world, but I remember at a very young age choosing toy animals over baby dolls. In fact, baby dolls terrified me, especially the ones that could move, more so than holding a 6ft python.

Spending most of my time as a kid outside, I loved making mud pies and climbing trees, to the point where I have broken a few bones climbing trees. Similar to Mary Schaeffer Warren, my love for nature was fueled by Native American culture and stories. In 5th grade, there was a book called The Native Stories from the Keepers of the Earth by Joseph Bruchac that I checked out every week from the elementary school library.

Before this project, I never considered how my childhood love for reading, writing, and making art about the natural world had affected the way I look at the world as an adult. I would pinpoint my disconnect with nature to being around my freshman year of high school when my other interests in sports and fine art started to take me away from spending time outside observing nature. I hadn’t fully grasped the idea of eco-art until I began to reaccess who I was as a person and an artist in 2020 after my falling out with photojournalism and traditional forms of photography.