A major inspiration for this painting was the book "Night Magic" by Leigh Ann Henion, which I read over a year ago. Listening to Henion's interview on "The Wild" podcast with Chris Morgan is how I learned about the synchronous fireflies at Smoky Mountain National Park. I marked my calendar months in advance and was fortunate to win the firefly lottery to see them in person this past May. They were bright and abundant. And also there were a lot of people with flashlights and headlamps shuffling around. I felt some tension around that. I learned that there are actually synchronous fireflies at other locations around the world. And I have fireflies in my own backyard in the summer. What can I learn about them? How can I appreciate and protect the night right here and right now? Especially as I post now in this cold season of darkness.

Other inspirations for the painting included items I found out on my hikes here in Alabama: mottled tree bark, mushrooms, blue mist flower, and a snail shell. The practice of noticing small things in nature was strengthened by the book "Tiny Worlds" by Rosalie Haizlett. I took a watercolor workshop from her in 2019, which helped me gain the confidence to engage more with watercolors.

As the stars twinkle in the sky, the magic also abounds underground. Mycelium networks connect trees, worms compost the dirt, and the web of life unfurls.

As magical as the night is, we are losing it rapidly. Over 80% of the world's population lives under light polluted skies. Learn more about how you can protect the night from DarkSky International.

Another painting inspired by the book "Night Magic" by Leigh Ann Henion. I joined the "Owl Prowl" as part of the Alabama Black Belt Birding Festival back in August. My friend, her husband, and I arrived after dark just a few minutes too late and missed the group, but another birder who happened to stay behind encouraged us to walk up to the dark forest edge and call out for the screech owl with our Merlin app. My phone glowing, I tried a few calls from the list and, lo behold, got a response! A faint neighhh eehheheheh. I laughed as I remembered when my husband had first taught me about the Eastern Screech Owl when we lived up against a forest in Green Bank, WV. Neither of us having ever been knowledgeable about birds, I asked, "since when do you know so much about birds?" His response: "I Googled 'bird that sounds like a horse.'"

Later in the Fall, as we were leaving an evening at the Huntsville Art Museum, the streetlights illuminated the maple trees surrounding the parking lot, providing an eery reddish glow from beneath that was striking against the dark night above. I thought of the Eastern Red Bats I had read about in "Night Magic," which hide under leaf litter in autumn, their reddish brown hue blending so well with the reddish brown leaves turning color for the season as the days get shorter and winter comes. I wondered if there might be some around, never having seen one in real life myself, though I know we have bats in Huntsville. I can see them when I'm out at night looking up, as they silently flap and zoom by overhead. 

This painting surprised me as it emerged, and I love it! This may be my favorite one of the series so far. It's so strange! Back in 2019, I snapped a photo in Spain of people playing in these giant bulbous orbs on a nearby waterway, perhaps some sort of tourist attraction. It looked otherworldly, and I've wanted to use it for a painting for years. As I revisited the photo as a potential inspiration for this series on Darkness, I realized that there are many "bubble" shapes in space, especially when we look at the radio sky. Ionized hydrogen (HII, pronounced "H-two") regions where stars are turning on for the first time enshrouded in nebulas, their energy gently clearing out a shockwave of material around them as the baby stars learn to how to do fusion for the first time. Conversely, stars dying -- supernova explosions, the death of high mass stars, which violently explode and expand out in bubble-like shapes as they cool for eternity, their guts infused with a delightful range of the periodic table, going forth to provide the raw materials for future stars. The great cosmic recycling. Plus, the invisible sky is just so interesting. We observe many more stars when we look at low energy infrared light, revealing the many stars that may be too dim for our eyes to pick them up. 

And the jellyfish! As I wondered what might go below the water surface for this Darkness painting, I thought of a lurking jellyfish. Another bulbous shape, a being with sweeping tentacles that seem to mimic the arc of the Milky Way. A dark dance sweeping from below to above and back again. 

The idea for this painting emerged as I grappled with the recent death of my 97-year-old neighbor. Such a long life, more than twice my age. I know she was tired. She would say, "I don't know why I'm still here," and, "I'm probably going to give up soon." I thought about her breathing one last sigh. The stars were so bright and clear that night. I thought about her sinking into the earth, her skin and bones joining the other humans who have died before, the other creatures with muscles, fur, teeth, horns, scales, feathers. Everything that has ever lived has died. Has decomposed, composted, submerged, recycled, and/or even been somehow preserved. The dark humus of the earth, roots of the living layers mixing with bone and rock. And, in a way, as we sink, we return to the stars. Earth is made from the cosmic remnants of dead stars, and we are made of that. We are made of starstuff. There is also more recent space stuff, though still ancient on the time scale of a human life -- the iridium layer from the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, the shocked quartz showed the jagged lines of a powerful force. And all the layers of life before that across eons. The trilobites, ocean dwellers, minuscule microbial bits from Earth's grand branching experiments in life. We are part of that experiment. We get to live and we get to die.

This painting has been surprisingly difficult to complete, and I’m not even sure it’s really “done." It started with seeing the Astronomy Picture Of the Day (or APOD) from April 27, 2026, a long exposure comet image with hundreds of satellite streaks. It took my breath away, and I cried in grief at the loss of the our ability to see the stars. Satellite constellations have already made the sky 10% brighter, and many more are expected to be launched in the coming years. As I searched within myself for something positive to hold onto, I drew on my experience seeing the aurora in Iceland back in February. Aurora will not be drowned out by satellite tracks. They occur in our upper atmosphere, beneath the satellite orbits, and that feels beautiful, to know that the aurora will continue despite pollution of the space environment. 

I was further inspired to focus in on the beauty and power of the creatures who know the night and need it. The image of a turtle came to mind, perhaps inspired by Native American descriptions of North America as "Turtle Island." I had also known that sea turtles are drawn to bright lights on the shore, confusing them with moonlight, instead of back out to sea, causing them to get run over and/or starve in their weakness. However, I didn’t realize until this year the extent of the threat of coastal lights on sea turtle populations. Coastal light pollution is THE top reason for sea turtle decline. This Sea Turtle Conservancy article on "All the light they can and should not see" shares the story of how we learned about how science, technology, and policy converge to understand and, hopefully, protect sea turtle habitat. 

Finally, I included the "prickly" and "stinging" creatures of the deep ocean, who live in the depths of darkness and respond by creating their own light, striking out, defending their existence and thriving against all odds.