Creation is cyclical for me. There are moments, throughout the year, where all I can possibly do is paint; I have to sit, surrounded by sunshine and wet paint and blank canvases, and breathe in the sticky summer sap and breathe out warm liquid spills of color. In the fall, as the seasons change and days shorten, I transition to more physical arts; broom-making, wood-turning, spoon-carving, every output becoming a “noun-hyphen-verb” as my hands do what my ancestors’ hands have always done in this season in the generations before mine. This act of making something calls in the winter, beckons storm clouds over the hills and prepares for long stretches of dark and soft recluse under blankets. During those long nights (often too cold to work in the art studio and wood shop), I grab my Ipad and stretch digitally into a world that is perennially temperate, where I never have to worry about the light available after sundown or the freezing ambient temperatures sapping the motor skills from my hands. But this world, too, is temporary; I can’t stare at that blue screen forever before shifting my aching eyes to the first spring-like glow of sunrise on the horizon and starting to dream, again, of paint.