This question is one that I couldn’t have fully answered even three or four years ago. Because I didn’t know. I had ideas about it, but it was all very hard to put into words.

So I had to think, go back and think some more. Because in truth, the animals just started showing up. They were jumping into my thoughts, and into my mind, into my sketches, and then onto my canvases.

And I just ran with it. I literally didn’t want to overthink it. At the time, at the beginning of this work, my most honest answer to a question like this would have been, “I have no idea. I just do it.”

And actually I think that’s fine in a way. Maybe because I personally have trouble finding the words, I feel that an artist - any artist - shouldn’t always be required to explain everything. The painting is there and it’s what they created. And the viewer can work out what they get from it. This is fair I think.

But, it’s also fair for an artist to explain what they did and why. If they choose.

And in the last couple of years I’ve had some conversations and some time to think, and I’ve started to figure out why I started creating artwork with animals. as the subject matter.

They showed up in my work because of the stories I wanted to share. I wanted to create a narrative with ideas that could sometimes complement each other, and other times challenge each other. And I found in the animals a way to do that. Because, animals have been used for centuries (maybe millennias) to tell stories, to convey ideas, to impart morals and belief.

We can see a fox, a bear, a rabbit, an owl, etc., in a work of art and we can easily ascribe a deeper meaning to it. We almost instinctively place it in a story. Because we’ve done so going back to our childhood. And not only does it have to do with our personal childhood, but collectively as humans this is a thing that has been done for so many generations. I feel it goes well beyond just our own experience. It’s bound up into our shared history.

And I think perhaps this is why at first, I couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t planned, it was instinctual. It just happened. I wanted to share a feeling that had been weighing on me, some idea from my life, and a fox appeared in my work. Unconsciously I knew that people would see the fox and understand there was a narrative that I was trying to convey. They would seek out meaning. And maybe what they would find wasn’t exactly what I had intended, but it didn’t matter. That there was a story to be found, a metaphor to interpreted, is what mattered. And that’s what made them stop and look a moment longer than they thought they might.

I’ll add a caveat. I do also paint trees. But I put these trees into the same category as storybook animals. We have been giving narratives to and placing our dreams into trees for just as long as we have animals. Trees have always held certain powers, emotions and magic. We love to use them as symbols and metaphors. Myself included.

I’ve envisioned the day where I will take a break from animals and from this particular body of work. Maybe not forever, but for a while. That doesn’t mean I won’t continue expressing ideas and stories through my work. I just might use other subject matter to do so. And in case you are wondering what would come next, she’s a woman.