Water as Teacher

There are certain teachers we don't recognize until we've spent years listening to them.

For me, one of those teachers has been water.

Living beside the Great Lakes has changed the way I see the world. I've watched the shoreline shift with the seasons, the light transform from hour to hour, and the same stretch of water become something entirely different from one day to the next. It has taught me that nothing living stays exactly the same. Everything is always moving, always becoming.

Some days the lake is calm enough to reflect the sky. Other days it's restless, shaped by wind and weather beyond its control. Somewhere along the way, I realized we aren't so different.

Our lives move through seasons too. Seasons of stillness and movement. Seasons of clarity and uncertainty. Seasons when we hold on, and seasons when we're invited to let go.

Water never struggles to become something it isn't. It responds. It receives. It trusts the season it's in.

I've found myself trying to learn from that.

Perhaps that's why this week's exhibition feels especially meaningful. As I prepare for the opening reception of my collection, Seasons of Water, I'm reminded that these paintings were never really about the Great Lakes themselves. They are about what the water has been teaching me all these years: that transformation can be quiet or tumultuous, that surrender isn't giving up, and that faith sometimes looks like trusting the current before you can see where it's leading.

On Thursday, August 13 at 5:30 p.m., I'll be celebrating the opening of this new exhibition at DELAMAR Traverse City, curated by K/P Cultural.

DELAMAR Traverse City
615 E Front St
Traverse City, MI

This exhibition marks the inaugural show in the DELAMAR Traverse City Artist Series, which makes the evening especially meaningful. I'm deeply grateful to be working alongside Jessica Kooiman Parker and Maggie Pavão, whose vision through K/P Cultural is helping weave artists more intentionally into the places where we live, work, gather, and belong. Their belief that art can shape the life of a community is one I wholeheartedly share.

If you're nearby, I'd love to welcome you, introduce you to the new work, and spend a little time together.

As these paintings leave the studio and find their place on new walls, I find myself thinking about what I'm ready to carry forward—and what I'm ready to release.

Maybe that's the quiet invitation of this season.

Not simply to admire the water.

But to ask ourselves where we're being invited to move with a little more trust, a little more openness, and a little more grace.

I'd love to hear what this season is teaching you.