Art is way of life. It is a perspective, an experience, an encounter that goes inward and then has to be released outward. My process begins with an experience that challenges my perspective and makes me question my own understanding of the world I live in. This series of paintings, "A Closer Look at Chickens," was inspired by my experience taking care of chickens and a close-up view of chicken sociology which allowed me to view a perspective I have never seen or thought about before.

Nine months ago, I took on the job of feeding chickens and putting them up at night as a favor for someone else and was surprised by my own enthusiasm for the feathered friends. In getting to know the chickens, they went from random birds running around to Avery, the lead rooster (who passed away in April), Frida, who is picked on by the ducks, and Ginger, who is assertive during feeding and not afraid to hop on my shoulder.

As a part of caring for the chickens I fed and put to bed around twenty free-roaming chickens and noticed a social system quite complex and interesting. I noticed that we use language similar to the vocabulary we use and hear in hierarchical systems in businesses and society's social and economic strata. Terms like "pecking order," "top rung," and "low rung," can be physically observed day to day in the world of chickens.

This chicken social system fascinated me to take photos from a chicken's perspective, on my hands and knees. The results were images that I used to paint from in my studio with an eye-to-eye perspective with the chicken. I didn't want images that looked down at the chickens as some lower level being but as an equal, a peer, a chicken looking at another chicken. I then took the images and bumped up the scale to create a range of larger-than life images. I used colors and painted in a style that is expressive and with realistic qualities that capture the unique qualities of each feathered friend. I utilized many layers and colors of thick mediums and paste, applied by palette knife, as I expressed the individual liveliness of each bird.