With a Reductive Screen Print, I approach it first by sourcing and drawing my image on Procreate to be able to play around with how many layers and types of colors are needed for the work. For this particular print, it was an image I took over the summer of 2025 when my friend and I had first discovered the ‘secret beach’ on the North Shores of Lake Superior. The composition and colors kept calling to me over the next many months, but the amount of layers I was conceptualizing would need to be used to successfully complete this piece was a major deterrent in pushing myself to attempt this screen print. After much contemplation, and a lack of practical sketches that would sooth those lingering concerns, I dove right in with only my hope and a dream backing me. I first expose a rectangle onto a silk screen coated in photo emulsion to establish the matrix or base of the piece. I then use screen filler and a paint brush to paint what I would like to save of the original paper color in the first layer, or do a full rectangle color as my base, which in this case was a very subtle blue gradient blend to capture the blurred difference between the sky and the lake far below the treeline. With each passing layer, I work to paint in more and more of the screen in order to save the previous color laid down in the print. By then end, most of the screen has been painted in, leaving just the finest details for last. Typically you work from the lightest color to the darkest, but there’s room to play around with transparencies and colors throughout the production of the print. Once this edition has been sold, no more can be made since the matrix has been destroyed. 
 
‘The Secrets We Keep’ is an 11 layer reductive screen print that features a nostalgic scene I captured along the North Shores of Lake Superior, hidden high above a secret beach that has become a treasure trove for me and some of my wonderful friends. The path is lined with the seasonal Lupine flowers you can see overtaking the ditches of Highway 61 when heading north in the late days of June and early July. The lupine flower isn’t just a beautiful thing, it’s far more complex than what simply meets the eye as we marvel at the pink, purple, and blue buds. Its attributes include a strength originally misconstrued for ‘wolf-like’ selfish tendencies, praying on nearby vegetation. In reality, what’s happening below the surface is a root system designed to play a big ecological role in their ability to fix nitrogen in the soil through a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria housed in their roots. Lupines play a crucial role in soil fertility and ecosystem health, benefitting their neighboring plants both below the surface, and in turn also supports our pollinator friends above ground through their nectar rich flowers. It’s a flower that has come to symbolize imagination, creativity, and renewal. The time of year in which they bloom greater supports these feelings of renewal both in their hero origin story and through folklore, suggesting that this timing aligns them with one of the most universal associations with the transition of spring into summer, especially in northern Minnesota: the return of warmth as a promise and proof that difficult season and cycles eventually end. 
 
‘The Secrets We Keep’ is a testament to my friendships, past, present and future. Simultaneously, it’s a testament to my commitment to this landscape. How I yearn to sit with the lake, amongst the trees, engage with the surrounding sounds, overturn rocks all day long. It’s a recognition of the privilege it’s been to be present within these spaces that have been the backdrop to so many important conversations with those most important to me, and so many moments of silence with myself. Moments contemplating where I am, how I got here, where I’m going. It’s a feeling that’s omnipresent, like a check in that lingers, these prints composed of timestamped images documenting something that remains stagnant, as the both of us continue to evolve and change, me and Lake Superior. It’s almost as though we’re holding each other accountable for coming back, for being there, for taking care of one another. A symbiotic relationship, a nourishment of the soul, filtering out the bad and replenishing the good, leaving me feeling restored and ready to continue to grow. Lake Superior doesn’t care how I show up. Just that I show up. That I care. That I continue to sit, and advocate, and take care of these places that don’t have a voice. Whether that’s through sharing these beautiful landscapes through my art, or engaging in a conversation about why preservation of these spaces matter. We must be holding up our end of the bargain in order to keep the relationship symbiotic afloat, especially in the most difficult of seasons when it feels like all hope is lost. It’s never lost, I think we just need to find our way back to it.