The Inconvenient Spark

2025

series of watercolor paintings featured in Issue Two of the Wild Hyacinth Magazine

This series is an open letter to the places we’ve lost and a quiet celebration of the effort it takes to stay connected. It is a visual commentary on the erosion of our “Third Spaces”, those vital, shared patches of ground outside of our homes and our jobs where community is actually built.

I’ve been guided by a single, challenging thought: the cost of community is inconvenience. We live in a world that sells us isolation disguised as ease. Our convenience-driven culture promises that life is better when we don’t have to leave the house… when the food comes to the door, a movie is on the screen, and the “connection” is a digital notification. We trade away a piece of connection for comfort, for ease.

These paintings explore that friction. To build a community is to choose the “inconvenient” path. It is the effort of putting on a coat to meet a friend, the labor of maintaining a community space, and the slow, act of writing a letter by hand.

These works are a reminder that while our public infrastructure may be weathering, our systems turning for ease and profitability, that the “glow” of human care is an ember that only stays lit if we are willing to keep tending to it, no matter how much work it takes.

Overarching Themes

The Intentional Flame: The recurring motif of fire represents the active energy required to maintain a relationship or a community; it doesn’t just happen—it must be ignited.

Decay of Public Infrastructure: The work visualizes the physical collapse of the places that once held us together, asking what remains of a community when its walls are gone.

The Myth of Ease: A look at how “convenience” acts as a barrier, convincing us that staying home is better than the “hassle” of shared experience.

Like a Moth to a Light

9 X 12 watercolor on 140 LB Cold Pressed paper

Symbolic Narrative

The subject is positioned at the intersection of loneliness and longing. While two traditional candles burn at the periphery, their natural warmth is ignored in favor of the cold, artificial light of the handheld device.

The title refers to the biological “moth” instinct; an involuntary, restless attraction to a light source that offers no heat. In this scene, the screen functions as a secular icon, providing a flicker of comfort that ultimately consumes the subject’s attention, leaving the surrounding world in a darkness.

Sending Warmth

9 X 10 watercolor on 140 LB Cold Pressed paper

Symbolic Narrative

This piece is a tribute to the “spark” of connection found in the mail system. A wood stove provides heat for a single room, but a letter carries that same essence across thousands of miles. The open door of the stove invited the viewer in, symbolizing the vulnerability and openness required to send a personal letter or a hand-picked trinket.

It honors the public infrastructure that allows us to counter isolation by delivering a physical manifestation of “home” to a friend’s doorstep.

Space Alight

9 X 12 watercolor on 140 LB Cold Pressed paper

Symbolic Narrative

This work serves as a commentary on the fragility of our shared physical environments. The narrative explores how we allow our public infrastructure to wither while the “people” behind those systems remain vibrant.

The house is a vessel; though the shell is breaking, the light within suggests that community spirit is an energy that cannot be dimmed or diminished. It is a legacy passed on through generations, continuing to ignite even in the most neglected spaces.

Guiding Mood Boards