February 4's torrential rain and hurricane-force winds toppled a 150 year old fir tree onto the roof of my home and studio. The sheetrock ceiling fell, rainwater entered, and a bookcase collapsed, causing a jar of dry Japanese mineral pigment smashed onto the floor where an inkjet printout of a Shahzia Sikander catalog fell into a puddle.
Once repairs were done and I cleaned and set up my studio, I found the demolished catalog and decided to save it. The way the ink bled and washed away, combined with the red mineral pigment powder on the pages, was quite beautiful. I've been determined throughout this ordeal to find silver linings and to bring creation out of destruction. I wanted to reclaim and restore myself, my home, and my studio. So I dried the pages, put a stack of art books on them, and then added gouache droplets and calligraphic gestural marks. This mixed media painting is the result of what was catastrophic but was also a fortunate accident.