An Agreement With Nature

I wanted to continue my work on wood and paint something that carried the weight of peace. When I visited the ICA and stood before a Monet, I felt that peace in his brushstrokes. I returned to my studio wanting to create my own. I loved the idea of placing something man-made within nature, not as intrusion but as harmony. Only later did I learn that Monet, too, once painted a bridge in the woods for the same reason: to symbolize the link between nature and humanity. What a coincidence. Or perhaps the same truth arriving twice, once in his hands and once in mine.

In this piece I paint my vision of a portal to heaven. We must see ourselves reflected in each person we encounter and allow that reflection to guide our growth. Within the ruins of this piece rests a mirror, so that whoever stands before it becomes part of this heaven too.

This piece captures the raw pulse of my heart as if it were rising from my chest. The fiery center glows with life, radiating outward into cool currents of turquoise, the meeting of blood and breath, fire and water. The lines trace rhythm like waves on shorelines: fluid, unplanned, coincidental with the movements of nature.

One night I dreamed of a fish I searched the world for. My journey led me to a pool party with my family from Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, and while playing in the water with the children I found it. The love I felt for it carried the same warmth I feel for my daughter. The waves carried the paint, the sand left its traces, and the seawater became part of the piece: a collaboration with nature, alive with coincidence.

This painting tells the story of one of the most transformative times of my life. I was looking for my voice and a deeper sense of self. The lone wolf represents a partner who brought out the best and the worst in me. He was the mirror I needed to break free from my cocoon. Together we made a beautiful world, yet were universes apart.

Initiation into spirituality is more than pouring water. It is understanding water itself: its power, its memory, the way it sustains life. I have always felt myself to be of the element of water. One night after painting, my phone lit up with an alarm reading “moon water.” I had never set that alarm. Maybe it was water speaking back, reminding me that we are blessed with every drop.

Owls have always spoken to me, symbols of wisdom since Athena. Trees, water, fire: who is wiser than the elements that have witnessed all things? I used them all here. On the back I inscribed a poem meant to bring wisdom to all who touch it. Soon after, a publisher reached out about a book. Their name? Purple Owl.

Cielo painted freely, and what emerged looked to me like a purple, green and white elephant. I traced over it in black, then handed her a marker to keep layering. As she worked she told me a story about mosquitoes attacking the elephant. There will always be things in our way, my love. But like our elephant, we will stand strong, together.

Mermaids have visited me in my dreams many times. One night I dreamed I was painting many shades of blue and many mermaids, and my ancestors whispered those words. When I painted the piece in waking life, my mother looked at it and asked, “Is that a mermaid?”

A manifestation of the union of all spirituality. Studying the Bible, the Qur’an and the Bhagavad Gita, I see how nature itself delivers messages from God, and how there is always a teacher guiding us toward the light.

Jesus, Buddha, Krishna. The Muslim tradition is woven in too, not through images of the Prophet but through the colors, the geometry and the symbolism that honor the essence of the faith. We are all reflections of this divinity.

On a warm July day I set an intention to surrender. I reached for an old floorboard from my attic, a can of blue spray paint and some charcoal, and let my subconscious speak. One month later, after four doctors told me I could not conceive, Cielo Snow Ross was forming in my womb. What a coincidence.

To my mother, the woman who moves a mile a minute. It felt right to honor her with the grace and dazzling, unstoppable energy of this tiny bird. Both find their joy in a field of flowers. I wish you many more fields in this lifetime, each one brighter than the last.

I was lost in the flow, searching for nothing but movement and feeling. I didn’t set out to paint a woman, and yet there she was, emerging from the colors. Maybe some spirits only appear when we open ourselves to being drenched.