Finding a New Canvas

Bass Harbor Head Light Station, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

In 2021, inspired by the incredible artist Ruby Silvious, who paints on her tea bags and egg shells and urges us to reconsider everyday objects, I began drawing on tea bags of my own with colored pencils. It was incredibly fun to see how much of the world I could capture in such a small space, and it was rewarding to finish a drawing in a few hours rather than starting and abandoning a project on a much-larger canvas. I began giving away these little drawings as gifts and found that others likewise were amazed that a piece of supposed trash could become something worth displaying. These tea bags are a testament to places I’ve been or to places I hope to visit one day, and they are a reminder that not everything is as ordinary as it may seem.

Zion National Park

Giethoorn, Netherlands (Venice of the North)

An imagined refuge inspired by the colors of fall and the little white summer cottages near Bar Harbor, Maine

A blue-eared starling among the protea—inspired by the beauty of South Africa

A Hildebrandt’s starling