How Museums Shaped the Way I See and Paint

Some of the most formative classes of my graduate studies didn’t take place in traditional classrooms. They happened inside museums — often deep within them — at the Smithsonian Institution.

I was taught by museum professionals and collections managers, people whose daily work involved care, classification, and attention. We met not only in galleries, but in storage rooms — the spaces most visitors never see. Long rows of cabinets filled the rooms, each drawer holding objects preserved with extraordinary precision: insects pinned and labeled, birds arranged by species, bones, tools, weapons, fragments of human and natural history from across the world.

Opening those drawers felt like opening time itself.

What struck me most was not only the scale of what was preserved, but the way it was presented. Objects from wildly different environments and cultures sat side by side, organized and honored through placement alone. A beetle collected decades ago. A bone. A tool shaped by human hands. Each one given space. Each one treated with equal seriousness.

Against white surfaces, the objects seemed to declare themselves: look at me. Not loudly, not dramatically — but with clarity and dignity.

That experience stayed with me.

In museum storage, nothing is decorative. Everything is there because it matters. Context is preserved, but so is restraint. The white surfaces, the clean lines, the careful spacing — all of it directs attention back to the object itself. The result is something that feels both ordered and reverent. The wildness of the world, held with intention. Something small and often overlooked, given space, care, and a place of honor.

What moved me was seeing how vast and untamed history could be made legible without being diminished. How care and organization didn’t strip meaning away, but instead made it visible.

That way of seeing shapes how I paint.

When I place flowers against white surfaces, I’m drawing directly from that museum experience. The white is not absence. It is intention. It is space that allows the subject to stand fully on its own, without distraction. The flower becomes an object of focus, worthy of attention in the same way a specimen or artifact is worthy of preservation.

I think of flowers the way museums think of objects — as carriers of memory, beauty, and context. A bloom holds an entire season. A lifetime of tending. A relationship to land, to care, to time. When placed with restraint, it can be seen clearly.

Museums taught me that presentation is a form of respect. They taught me that objects — whether ancient tools or fragile petals — deserve to be looked at closely. That meaning doesn’t need embellishment. That clarity can feel sacred.

That is the spirit I bring into my work: honoring the natural world through attention, restraint, and care. Allowing a subject to stand forward and say, simply and confidently, look at me.