Artist Statement

As a multidisciplinary artist my work begins where art, ecology, and herbalism meet, rooted in devotion to the living world and an ongoing relationship with our more-than-human kin. My work emerges through slow, tactile, plant-based processes that invite collaboration with the alchemical intelligence of the living world.

To work with plants is to practice interbeing. Every leaf, root, and petal leaves an imprint, not only on paper or cloth, but in the body, the heart, and the imagination. My practice is a slow conversation, an attunement to the subtle exchanges that occur when we listen deeply. I work with materials that are local, ephemeral, foraged, or grown, carrying the memory and spirit of their places of origin.

Over time, I’ve developed Art that Breathes—a process-based, relational methodology grounded in sensory attention, reciprocity, and co-creation with healing plants. This work resists control; it favors emergence. It is about impressions, how we are shaped by land, weather, season, and the beings we live alongside.

My work also extends into the social realm through workshops, gatherings, writing, ceremony, and shared meals. I’m interested in how art cultivates reflection, wonder, and tenderness, inviting people back into relationship with the living world. Time at Standing Rock in 2016 taught me the difference between calling people out and calling them in, and that ethic continues to guide how I create and how I teach.

I draw inspiration from those who blurred the boundaries between science, spirit, and imagination. As an immigrant in rural Massachusetts and a proud member of the LGBTQIA+community, I carry an embodied understanding of the ways we are changed by place, encounter,and one another. My work seeks to honor these exchanges: the subtle marks we leave, the ones we inherit, and the small impressions of aliveness that persist even in a fractured, burning, grieving world.

Learn more about Tony(a) here.