Along the Fault's Edge, You Become the Tide (The Swimmer, Tomales Bay)

2025, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 x 1.5 in unframed

In this painting, the body meets the living surface of Tomales Bay at the hour when day folds into night. The swimmer is held between water reflecting the sky, suspended in that charged in-between. Light fractures across the ripples, breaking into ribbons of molten color that move faster than your eyes can quite track. The swimmer is both still and in motion—upright in the water, yet dissolving into it. With the horizon not in the frame, the world reduces to surface, reflection, sensation.

Tomales Bay sits on the San Andreas Fault, where the earth itself is under constant, unseen tension. Even the water feels like it carries a quiet tremor. The swirling neon currents echo those invisible forces below, hinting that change starts where stability cracks open. The figure isn’t just in the tide; they’re part of it, folded into the same charged energy that reshapes land and body alike.

Rather than a simple portrait, this painting holds the feeling of surrender—of letting yourself drift into what you can’t control, carried by something larger than certainty. It lingers in the moment when boundaries loosen: between self and world, fear and exhilaration, holding on and letting go. When you live with it, it becomes a reminder that transformation often begins right where you finally allow yourself to float.