My work as an artist, writer, and educator is rooted in the belief that creativity, place, and well-being are deeply intertwined. Through community-engaged art, I facilitate projects that encourage reflection, connection, and healing—whether in waiting rooms at the UNM Cancer Center, through public art installations, or interactive poetry maps that document personal relationships to place. Across these projects, I aim to cultivate spaces where art helps us navigate grief, memory, resilience, and our evolving relationship with place. If you are interested in collaborating, let’s start a conversation.
Honors Is a Wonderland
Honors Is a Wonderland is a community-driven mural that visualizes the transformative power of honors education and its deep connection to place. Created through an iterative, participatory process, the mural was designed using survey responses from the University of New Mexico Honors College community—including students, faculty, staff, and alumni—who reflected on what honors education meant to them. A recurring theme emerged: honors learning is not contained within a classroom but expands outward, shaping individuals and the world around them. This idea of transformation is depicted through a silent, sequential story at the heart of the mural. The use of New Mexico’s natural imagery grounds the mural in place, emphasizing that education is always in dialogue with its environment.
As a community-engaged project, Honors is a Wonderland was not only about its final mural, but also about the process of creation. I hired three student assistants—none of whom had held a paintbrush before. They learned site-specific design principles, how to create art that resonates with a community, and the hands-on skills of mural painting. We hosted several community painting days, so everyone could help create the new mural. At present, the mural is approved to be eight feet wide, but we hope to continue painting this wall in years to come. This collaborative process embodied the spirit of honors education itself: curiosity, creativity, and community.
Cyanograms: Shadows Cast on Ephemeral Futures
Cyanograms: Shadows Cast on Ephemeral Futures was a photographic installation that used large-scale linen prints to make visible students’ climate grief in a changing world. Drawn from interviews with UNM students about the climate crisis, I transformed students’ words into poems detailing their fears and hopes for the future. Paired with images of our local natural and built environments and silhouettes of students, these poems were printed on fabric and hung in the windows of the Honors College. They remained on display during the National Poetry Month, Earth Day, and the UNM sustainability expo.
Cyan (blue, cyanotype photo process) + gram (something written or recorded) = cyanogram
Solastalgia Tree
During the 2023 University of New Mexico sustainability expo, I spoke with students about their climate fears. Using turmeric ink, students wrote down what they were afraid of losing due to climate change on small slips of scrap paper. We then tied the scraps to a “solastalgia tree.” Solastalgia is a neologism describing the distress produced by the contemporary effects of climate change in one’s home environment. As turmeric is light sensitive and fades over time, these words, too, faded, creating a visual representation of loss.
2023 – Healing arts Game
Slipstream Dweller
Welcome to the galactic undercurrent of fundamental surprises! When you take on the role of Slipstream Dweller, you embark on a healing journey that invites you to pay attention to various spheres of your life and consider actions to further engage with your community, your personal beliefs and values, your hobbies and interests, your loved ones, your environment, and your health and wellness. A flipped pebble may just change your life!
This game is designed for anywhere between 1-3 players. As a solo player experience (as the Slipstream Dweller), the game is very reflective; when more players join, they take on the role of a Spirit Guide, or motivational interviewer, asking provocative questions to help unpack the advice of the surprise that a player has rolled.
Afterbeams
“Afterbeams” was a sculptural text installation that explores local ecology and the landscape of memory at the Bosque Redondo Memorial (summer 2021). Students from the NACA-Inspired Schools Network and community members from the Indigenous Nations Library Program wrote poems in response to prompts based on the memorial’s contemplation circle associated with Dook’o’oosliid (the San Francisco Peaks outside of Flagstaff, AZ), the direction west, and the color yellow. Their words were painted onto linen using natural earth pigments and layered with light-sensitive turmeric ink that fades over time to reflect how memory and resilience are tied to place. These linens were hung on steel frames that visually reference the San Francisco Peaks. The organic shape of the frames and cut cloth called to mind the invisible forces that continually shape the mountains, such as wind and water on the mountains’ strata. A parallel can be drawn between these forces and the continual shaping of history and collective memory on communities and individuals. Collaboration with Sara Danielle Rivera. You can read more about it at Southwest Contemporary.
Monsoon Message
Using the vibrant blue hue of the cyanotype process as a means to link it to haiku poetry about the monsoons in New Mexico, a season of relief and renewal, photographer Megan Jacobs and I sought to connect the uncertainty of the pandemic lockdown and a desire for connection to essential rhythms and routines. We created a custom handmade font and then cut out the individual letters of each poem and lay them on the fabric, which was soaked in the cyanotype chemistry. The sun exposed the surrounding fabric, turning it a brilliant Prussian blue and the areas in which the light was blocked (such as the sections for the text and artwork) remained white. The artwork included silhouettes and digital negatives as well as creating patterns from natural materials using the photogram process that enhance the poem but do not illustrate the writing. These cyanograms were installed at 106 Gold Ave SW, Albuquerque, NM, as part of 516 Arts “Windows on the future” exhibit in summer 2020.
Duke City Fencing Mural – 2019
“American Lumber” and “Navajo Addition”
These two light post banners were hung along Mountain Road in Albuquerque, NM as part of the History of the Neighborhood through the Eyes of Contemporary Artists public art project. The original art was on display at Julianna Kirwin Studio and the banners on Mountain Road at 10th and 12th Streets. These banners reflect the history of the Sawmill district in Albuquerque, NM. (2018)
To Spread Happiness
In 2017, I worked on a team to paint this mural of hummingbirds at the Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless. We worked under lead artist Nani Chacon to realize a collaborative vision, incorporating UNM student Nathaniel Nez’s original design, ArtStreet’s unhoused participants, and UNM students hard work. The hummingbirds are meant to symbolize determination, flexibility, and adaptability as they flutter across a turquoise sky above the Sandia skyline outlined in rainbow stripes. ArtStreet is a nonprofit organization and art collective at Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless. It is an open studio that anyone, regardless of housing status, can visit every Thursday and Friday as well as every third Saturday of the month. The studio is an open, safe space where connections and communities are built through art. 1217 1st Street NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
