“It’s not what you look at that matters,

it’s what you see.”

–Henry David Thoreau
 

There are two ways to deal with spilled milk. One is to cry over it; the other is to appreciate how fantastic it looks.

Our perspective is all we have… and we are either imprisoned by it, or we are freed by it.

Perhaps you've experienced that sweet freedom that comes from putting down the “label” and just letting something - or someone - be exactly what they are.

For me, a great tool for releasing from conflict has been a way of outward seeing that takes in the landscape in a label-less way.

Abstraction becomes the healing agent. It’s all about appreciating form for form’s sake.

When a splattered curb is seen as an exquisite painting of curves, textures, color play... I have succeeded.

For that curb is no longer about dog piss or utility. It is eye candy. It’s a means to melt into my momentary freedom.

I’m always amazed by how the simplest shift of focus, can be so liberating.

How something as simple as tape on a sidewalk could hit me like a museum masterpiece.  

The practice of appreciating the mess, the details, the happenstance, exactly as they are… it allows me to find beauty in the areas where I thought it not to be, throughout my everyday life.

Even inside the heartbreaks and the tragedies.

I've discovered that once life becomes an everywhere art show, there’s no going back to a time when surrounding riches were scarcely noticed.

No matter the challenges still ahead, it’s how I see… that actually has my back.

I believe appreciation is the necessary ingredient for real global change, because we only take care of the things we appreciate. 

When we haven’t an appreciative relationship with our surroundings, it's easier to cut ourselves off from those larger conversations, like about climate change.

Nothing positive is ever born of conflict. But of gratitude, well…

Gratitude is ready to explode open in every moment, if but for the manner with which we see and take in what’s right in front of us.

And to the extent that we’re courageous enough to play creatively with our pain.

So may your vision be aglow today, with the wonderment of the once mundane. And the brilliance inside those harder landscapes.

Beauty… may be closer than you think.

Yours in the Spills,
Sherry

P.S. I’ve expanded my perspective shifting agenda into the technology space! Click here to learn more about what I’m doing as Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer of Treegoat.
 

Who collects your work?

I’m honored and inspired that my collectors have included a handful of National Bestselling Authors, writers for HBO and The New York Times Magazine, stars of MTV, Grammy winners, famous actors, musicians, scientists, architects, and countless lovers of detail and “beauty in the unlikely place” romantics around the globe.

Where have you been featured?

Some of the places I’ve exhibited or been featured include:

SCOPE Basel, Communication Arts, The New Inquiry Magazine, NY Arts, 450 Broadway Gallery, NYC TV, Clear Channel, Roulette Gallery, Abaco Space, Rogue Space, The Office of the Manhattan Borough President, ArtUp at FAB, The Jane Hotel, The Focus Project, Greenpoint View Gallery, Hollyshorts Film Festival, Nuyorican Poets Café, Casa da Abitare Magazine, D-Lounge at the Daryl Roth Theatre, Dossier Journal, City Arts, Bronx News 12, Art Frankfurt, Kronberg Castle, Herr Franz at the Palais Livingston, and Alp Galleries. I’ve modeled for Swiss Air and MAC campaigns, and was asked to remain ‘self-styled’ for a Vanity Fair shoot with Mark Seliger.

Do you have gallery representation?

Yes. Alp Galleries in Frankfurt, Germany, maintains a collection of my large-scale, signed Limited Edition CLOSER pieces, as well as works of mine in other media.