Portfolio & Work

Written Statement, Corresponding Poetry and Paintings

The archer’s motions of preparation, release, and impact are meditative philosophies that guide our movements through achieving our goals. Aim Skyward turns toward hope and healing by being our brightest, most authentic selves. Its dynamic soundtrack of eight songs guides an emotional arc that corresponds to the blooming flower and the arrow’s flight. The choreographies are situated alongside three onscreen quotes from “The Way of the Bow” by Paulo Coelho. This film is inspired and supplemented by my own poem, “Sky-born,” as well as two paintings, “Blossom Essence” and “Where Air Meets Water,” below.

Aim Skyward weaves in subtle references to the history of NYC’s beloved Bethesda fountain, with the sculpture Angel of the Waters being the first public art commission in New York City by a woman, Emma Stebbins. An angel holds a flower with four dancing cherubs, figures that represent the qualities of peace, health, purity, and temperance, which the dancers in Aim Skyward bring to life. Rainbow textiles and loving choreography correspond with the statue’s queer history, including speculation that Emma Stebbins modeled the angel after her partner, Charlotte Cushman. Further, this film features dance in Central Park’s famous Sheep Meadow, a place of solace for countless New Yorkers where the iconic city skyline meets vivacious greenery and frolicking crowds.

A second pair of dancers first enter to the soundtrack of a documentary about photosynthesis from the 1940s, called “Gift of Green.” Aim Skyward coalesces into a montage of blooming flowers, digitally remixed on Hydra, a live coding visual synth, to illuminate their auric and kaleidoscopic essences. This approach is inspired by the watercolors of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint’s Nature Studies, her detailed botanical drawings with abstract diagrams made to reveal “what stands behind the flowers,” toward her conviction that studying nature uncovers truths about the human condition. In all, Aim Skyward draws from the works of Hilma af Klint, Paulo Coelho, and Emma Stebbins to guide the viewer through the arrow’s archetypal flight.

Accompanying paintings diptych: Blossom Essence, and Where Air Meets Water
metallic acrylic gouache on paper, 5"x 7"
developed as part of the research process for Aim Skyward

Sky-born

Archer, in premise near
arrow flutters forward–

bitter poison
lost to wind
as runner’s breath
and distant cries
in thin-winged descent.

Skyline softens
in veined constellations
O heliotrope bloom, steady my draw–
guide me toward fletched doves
who roost in wind-worn rafters
along vine-tangled roads

Summon me back
to the soil of care, yielding humility.
Cirrus petals catching dawn
innocent precipice of rainbow

quiet drawback, taut string and arms
aim my fashioned weapon, breathy
release into circular destiny
arc of uncharted return

Read the poetry chapbook Sky-born is excerpted from, Revenant // Windswept

Process notebook fragments:

"On the ground, I wondered if gravity would hold me here forever, or if Earth's circular momentum would take me away. The remaining, grief stricken, look towards the sun as a final trajectory. Only flowers know the littleness of a day; our eyes die to their time."

"I almost have enough memories to be happy. If only I could revisit them without losing the present. If only I could stay present without them slipping away. Arrows fly forward without hesitation, but with a preparation akin to underground root networks.

"Trees draw down their green through winter; what looks like withering returns energy to trunk and root, fueling generative rest and sheltering insects in fallen leaves. A flower bloom emerges from unseen strength: the stalk, like an arrow, grows against the wind; the archer is stronger for it. Plants reveal that the breath, beauty, and nutrients of life dance toward connection, toward intention. Bodies and choreographies, moving forward through time, are always informed by seasonal elements."

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