While working from home for much of 2020 I became fascinated with learning to identify the trees, edible plants, and fungi that grow around me in Keezletown. This inspired me to return to my original love of drawing and painting after a more than 15-year hiatus as a way of studying fungi in more detail. I have found the process of creating art with my hands to be a much-needed way to escape from the neverending onslaught of information from our digital devices. “Strata Fungi” revisits similar themes to my 2007 series "Perennial" regarding our society's relationship with nature. That work often depicted desolate landscapes and man-made structures being reclaimed by nature. My new work takes a more playful and hopeful approach by imagining a world where larger-than-life mushrooms, futuristic architecture, and otherworldly landscapes are combined. It also explores and imagines strange and beautiful layers of geological strata below the surface of these landscapes. There is probably a profound metaphor here about the importance of nature for my physical and mental health as well as our civilization as a whole. Something about how the answers we are looking for often require us to go inside but external distractions get in the way. I think we all have darkness, failures, and mistakes but also great beauty when we take the time to look closely and allow ourselves the chance to change. But it’s hard work. Don’t do it alone. Find therapy. Find healing. Or something like that.