Last summer (2023), I picked up a brush and started painting. I first started on 18” x 18” canvases and acrylic paint. I used modeling paste, photographs, and even objects (deer antlers, etc.) I loved it. I could see potential and wanted to keep exploring ideas with it.

When winter comes and it starts to get really cold, I have to shut my photography studio and darkroom down. It’s all off-grid, so there's no heat or running water. I do power it with a large solar battery, and it all works well in the warm months of summer. In the winter here, I have to find other activities. In the winter of 2022-2023, I wrote, researched, and read for my book. I wanted to do something different for the winter of 2023–2024.

In undergraduate school, I was exposed to a lot of different types of art-making. Drawing, design, painting, etc. I’ve always wanted to paint. I’ve always had a strong interest in it. Over the years, I’ve taken so many of the great painters ideas and incorporated them into my photography. It has such a long and rich history that it can’t be ignored if you are interested in the visual arts.

With this book project (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil), I wanted to work in the same vein as Ernest Becker; I wanted my project to be interdisciplinary. I knew painting was another discipline that I could incorporate, so I geared up and started doing the work.