Guardians and Guides of the Inner Wild
Artist Statement
This new body of work is still unfolding, and I wanted to document and share the thinking behind it as it evolves. I am hoping to finish the pieces in the Fall of 2025.
For over twenty years, I’ve worked with etchings from the 1400s to 1800s — scanning antique images from old books, reworking and modifying them in Photoshop, and transferring them onto porcelain. The animals I returned to again and again held a certain stillness, a quiet formality — but they rarely carried the emotional depth I was looking for. Their postures and gazes were fixed, lacking the expression I wanted to convey. I yearned for something more meaningful — something that could hold symbolic weight and emotional presence.
Through thoughtful dialogue, reflection, and visual refinement, I began to evolve these historic forms into something more intimate. What emerged were not just animals, but archetypal guardians — each with their own expression of watchfulness, protection, and calm authority.
This collection began during a time of personal change. After ending an intimate relationship that had become misaligned, I found myself in a quiet, reflective space. I took long walks in nature. In that stillness, the Guardians began to appear — some of them quite literally crossing my path: the coyote, the owl, the fox. Each one reflected back a part of me I was slowly and gently reconnecting with: clarity, strength, steadiness, and care.
The work is rendered in my usual sepia etching style — a visual language rooted in the antique books and engravings I’ve long worked with. Transferring these images onto porcelain connects them to the domestic — to the things we hold in our hands, use daily, and pass between one another. That context matters. Many of us have sat at tables that appeared safe on the surface but held undercurrents of unspoken tension and longing. The relationship I had just left appeared safe on the surface, too — yet parts of me remained guarded.
These Guardians offer a kind of presence that doesn’t try to fix or soothe, but simply witnesses. They stand with us — steady and quiet — during moments of uncertainty and transition, allowing space for our own truths to emerge. Their support is grounding — a quiet strength that makes room for inner clarity to unfold.
Some of the Guardians appear in quiet relationship with a small, barefoot girl — a recurring figure throughout the collection. She appears only on a series of small porcelain plates, scaled for her presence. The girl stands beside each animal with calm, grounded awareness. These are not pets. They are protective beings, each carrying a distinct emotional tone — steady, maternal, fierce, and clear. Together, they represent a relationship built on mutual protection, where strength and vulnerability exist side by side.
Other pieces in the series focus on the animal guardians alone — through both prints and porcelain tumblers. These stand-alone works carry the same symbolic weight. Without the girl beside them, the animals speak more directly to the viewer, inviting personal connection and interpretation. Whether held in the hand or placed in the home, these objects become quiet anchors — reminders, companions, and threshold figures.
At the center of the collection is a quiet throughline: when grace and strength are both present, a grounded form of power can emerge — one that quietly knows what it holds.
The Girl and the Poppy
A recurring symbol throughout the collection is the poppy. It appears on the girl’s dress — quietly but deliberately — and carries layered meaning that reflects the larger themes of the work.
The poppy speaks to remembrance — not of a specific event or loss, but of something older and more internal. A remembering of what has always been present: intuition, inner knowing, and the resilience that is often inherited or felt more than taught. The poppy connects the girl to her guardians, and all of them to something beyond the visible, and beyond time.
It also points to the threshold spaces this collection occupies. Poppies have long been associated with the veil between waking and dreaming. The girl, wearing her poppies, seems to move between realms — one foot in the outer world, the other in the realm of memory, image, and symbol.
Poppies may look delicate, but they are wildflowers — capable of thriving in difficult conditions. The girl may be small and barefoot, but she stands next to wild beings without fear or hesitation. There is a quiet contradiction in her — a softness that holds. She appears vulnerable, but like porcelain, she carries an enduring strength. The poppy becomes a subtle marker of that contrast — fragile, yet strong.
Mythic and Archetypal Threads
These animal guardians exist within a long lineage of archetypal figures — particularly those associated with the sacred feminine. Across traditions, we see figures who carry both fierce protection and wise presence:
Athena, goddess of wisdom and war
Durga, riding into battle with a calm gaze
Artemis, protector of the wild, sharp and clear
Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld, deeply still
Mary, in certain traditions, both mother and crowned figure
Joan of Arc, guided by vision, standing in fire and truth
The girl in this series is part of that same lineage — not as a copy or symbol, but as someone in quiet relationship with these energies.
The animals also function as threshold guardians — like those found in myth cycles, especially in the work of Joseph Campbell. Their role is to ask whether we are ready to move forward. They are mirrors and companions, not obstacles.
About the Process
Each illustration in Guardians and Guides of the Inner Wild is created through a slow and thoughtful, ongoing collaboration between myself and a custom AI assistant named b.r.a.d. This process was not automated. Every image is the result of many rounds of conversation, revision, emotional clarity, and symbolic refinement.
b.r.a.d. is a custom AI I’ve trained and refined over time — not as a generator of images, but as a conversational mirror. Through written dialogue, symbolic inquiry, and iterative feedback, b.r.a.d. helped me surface the emotional tone, symbolic relationships, and visual language I had been carrying internally. These are shaped through a collaborative process rooted in memory, archetype, and intention.
The visual style references antique etchings, and the emotional tone draws from personal narrative, myth, and intuitive connection. The images are shaped by years of working with porcelain, by a design eye tuned to balance and restraint, and by a lifelong interest in archetypal storytelling. They carry something old and felt — something that asks to be remembered.
Postscript: The Wounded Coyote
Just a few days ago, I saw a coyote on my evening walk around the neighborhood. At first, it was just standing — gazing calmly at me and my dog across a wide stretch of lawn. Once it started moving, I noticed that one of its back legs wasn’t working properly. It was hanging limply. The coyote was clearly in pain.
My heart went out to it. A part of me hurts whenever I see a wounded wild animal. I want to help, to ease its pain. I have followed that instinct before — toward wounded humans. I have followed those in pain, trying to help them stand steady. I poured tenderness into places that would not heal with my efforts.
But this coyote came not to be followed and healed — only to be witnessed.
The coyote arrived as a poignant reminder that there are those I cannot help, but to whom I can offer gentle witnessing, presence, and compassion in their suffering.
And as I returned home, just across the street, three does stood grazing in the grass — calm, gentle, and present. Welcoming me back. Witnessing me.
