For a considerable amount of time my work has been focused on the movement and spirit of wild animals. I capture this energy and vitality in the energetic mark-making from the effects of the drawing and printing processes. In this body of work I am combining these visual qualities with the oral storytelling folklore traditions of the indigenous Native American culture. More specifically the Cherokee, Shawnee, Yuchi, Chickasaw, Quapaw and Koasati who were the tribes living in the area that would later become known as the State of Tennessee. There is a rich colourful vein of oral and musical tradition to inspire, recant and even lament as Nashville is on the tragic "Trail of Tears" route where these tribes were forced to leave their homelands in Tennessee to reservations in the west to make way for white settlers whom many were ironically from the Celtic nations seeking a new life in the new world. Although we share this terrible history, we also both share a strong tradition of art, music, singing and folklore that features stories, myths and legends around wild animals common to both cultures such as the Hare, Rabbit, Fox, Wolf, Crow and many more.