"Pressing Ground" is a body of work birthed from my experience photographing around the planet from September 2025 - April 2026. “Pressing” is used to call upon both urgency and physical touch. “Ground” speaks to the actual solid surface of Earth, the electrical connection, and to foundation and reason. On assignment for myself and the planet, I contributed physical labor and photography to projects centered around permaculture, rewilding, climate activism, and living in harmony with the Earth.

I seek support to research, edit, print, and share this work through a self-produced photography exhibition and self-published photography book with coinciding programming - an artist talk, opening and closing receptions, and “Green Swaps”. During our stay in Aotearoa, we swapped caring for animals with staying at an Earthship and nature-focused artist residency. My photographs from Earthskin were published in New Zealand's "On the Land" magazine. “Green Swaps”, invite people to trade items or skills directly, foster connections and resilience while reducing waste.

My husband, musician Mark Gonzalez and I traveled through Workaway, a platform that provides sustainable cultural exchanges for food and housing. We worked with climate activists, removed invasive species, restored native plants, created various composts and soil remediations, learned about eco-building, and studied sacred and medicinal plants at a living library. In addition to supporting environmental projects, this experience has been an exploration and investment in discovering myself and expanding my practice.

My camera was always with me. I created over 12,000 photographs in Portugal, Greece, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Costa Rica. Photography provides me with a way to retreat into a world within the small rectangle of light and shadow, to find quiet moments of stillness. The practice helped ground me in unfamiliar places. It granted me permission to pause, to look slower, and to go deeper.