The completed work, entitled Where Boundaries Blur, is a 16 x 20 inch acrylic painting, framed and ready to hang. It depicts a woman cradling the head of a deer amid dense foliage that breaks past the edges of the composition. The woman and the deer share the same eyes, hinting at a connection shared between the human and animal. Both figures, along with several orb weaver spiders, appear to emerge from the leaves—partially concealed, partially revealed—as if the boundary between their bodies and the surrounding landscape is shifting. Their colors echo one another, reinforcing the sense of reflection and shared origin.

Much of this image came directly from daily observation. I spend a lot of time tending my yard and walking familiar outdoor spaces, paying attention to what changes with the seasons. The deer that move quietly through my garden and the orb weavers that build their webs across my porch became central figures in my thinking as summer shifted toward fall. Rather than forcing an idea, I allowed repeated encounters with these animals to guide the imagery. My contemplative practice is rooted in watching and connecting. This painting grew from that quiet, present attention.

Spending time along local waterways — specifically the Roanoke River, Tinker Creek Greenway, and the Pigg River — continually reminds me of the interdependence between living beings and their environment, where life and decay exist side by side. That awareness has shaped my work by leading me to depict humans, along with animal figures, not as separate from their surroundings, but as extensions of them — inseparable, coexisting, and formed by the same forces.

Listening to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek during this process shaped how I approached the painting’s tone. One passage I kept returning to was Dillard’s account of witnessing a frog’s sudden death:
“He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football… the frog I saw was being sucked by a giant water bug.”
That image stayed with me because it did not shy away from the unsettling realities of nature. Dillard doesn’t romanticize — she observes. Elsewhere, she writes:
“We are no more important to the universe than its dust motes, but we are conscious dust motes.”
These lines prompted me to approach my own work with more honesty. Rather than portraying nature only as gentle or harmonious, I wanted to acknowledge its intensity — the closeness of life, death, and renewal. The shared gaze between the woman and the deer is not sentimental; it is recognition.

This work has led me to think more directly about how death functions within nature. The scene in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek where the frog deflates as it’s being eaten stayed with me, and at the same time I was listening to The Silt Verses, which also deals with nature and sacrifice in a raw way. Together, those influences made me want to explore death not as something separate from nature, but as part of how it operates. Going forward, I’m interested in how to represent that honestly — without romanticizing it, but also without avoiding it.

Technically, I learned a new transfer method using a doodle grid to more efficiently scale my initial sketch onto the final artwork surface. It allowed me to keep the energy and dimension of my original drawing while working at a larger size, and I plan to continue using it. Creatively, I learned that the painting became clearer the more I trusted my observational instincts instead of over-planning. The imagery settled into place and continued to build upon itself as I worked.