There's a phase where my mind goes into sponge mode - it is perhaps the most awkward of phases, like a mental New Moon. Everything soaking in, it gets messy and colorful to say the least. Only work can iron it out, and there's thankfully so much to do. This year is an exciting year for me - I'll be traveling back up to Oxford, MS to do a performance-based painting of my steel piece, Swamp Flower , during the Double Decker Festival in April, and I'll be exhibiting some landscapes at Southside Gallery along with my friend and fellow nature painter Carlyle Wolfe.

The summer brings more fun - I'll have a solo exhibition at River Gallery in Chattanooga, TN. The gallery has both an indoor and outdoor gallery space, so I'm working on both interior and exterior pieces for this show.

In September, I'm thrilled to announce that I'll have my first solo museum show at the Isaac Delgado Gallery in New Orleans. I fell in love with the greenhouse-cathedral feeling of the space, and will be throwing all of my sculptural ambitions into the exhibition "Twilight and the Dance of Trees".

But this post is really about the beginning of all this, and where I stand as of January 2016. I'm painting, and painting, and painting. Stretching canvases, going for as many morning runs as I can, and making my recordings patiently. There's a plan, and I'm working through it.

Working through some of these "New Moon" paintings.

The New Orleans space is still open, but mainly by appointment so I can focus on producing my new work. You should really go to supper club - I think that is the perfect experiential setting to see what I do, and what Melissa Martin does there is absolutely delightful. There are some great swamp paintings to be seen amongst her grandmother's cajun aromas, the infamous duck wallpaper, and a new room with some playful swamp abstractions from the fall.

With Love from the swamps,

Mia