In early 2026, I exhibited “Daily Commitments” at the Regier Art Gallery, a post-sabbatical showing of my recent work.

Here is how I described the show in the opening statement:

What does it mean to do something every day, for days or weeks or months on end? I understand daily practice as a conscious discipline and a commitment to the self, whether for physical, emotional, or creative health. Artists who teach know that the demands of the classroom can easily absorb one’s creative energies. For this reason, I frequently assign myself a month-long daily practice in September, thirty dedicated days of making to ensure that I carve out time for my own artistic thinking as the academic year gets underway.

In the last several years, I have also looked to daily practice to help me navigate periods of uncertainty. On March 15, 2020, I decided to write one letter every day, on paper that I hand-marbled in the backyard. It grounded me during early pandemic disorientation and provided a tangible way to maintain regular human connection amidst isolation. I began without knowing how long the project—or the pandemic—would last. I wrote and mailed one letter every day for 365 days, wrapping up the series in mid-March 2021. That year-long project made clear to me that daily practices are also projects of endurance, requiring physical stamina and emotional perseverance.

The series on display in the gallery represent and respond to a range of daily commitments—including writing, drawing, and walking—from my sabbatical time. I also include here a new daily series, one that will unfold each day over the course of the exhibition.

In early June 2024, I went for a walk and saw that the first hedgeapples had fallen. While I typically associate hedgeapples with autumn, years of drought had stressed the Osage orange trees such that fruits were falling months earlier than normal. Had I not been out walking among the trees, I would not have noticed this very tangible outcome of a changing climate. I observed these hedgeapples during my summer walks and continued to think about them through this series of daily drawings.

In the past two years, my daily walking has expanded to include some long-distance endurance walks. In 2024, a friend and I spent eight days on the Walk of Wisdom. Across more than 100 miles, I learned to know the feel of different surfaces through the soles of my feet. I learned to judge distances according to the pace of walking rather than driving. I learned to know the strength of my own body and the perseverance needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I learned to walk differently.

These eight photographs, one for each day, were accompanied by a multichannel sound piece, Walking, Lost and Found, accessible via QR code in the gallery.

When I went to Canada on a Fulbright fellowship, I walked every day for 120 days. This daily practice through a long, cold winter helped me listen to the specificities of this place: snow and ice, magpies and coyotes, snowshoe hares and evergreen trees.

September Scores: Invitations to Listen are a series of thirty text pieces, prompts for multisensory listening–something to be done not only with our ears but also with our hands and feet, through walking or writing, drawing or stitching. The piece lived in the gallery both as prints to be read and as a sound piece, each text spoken aloud in the space.

During the length of the exhibition, I enacted a daily commitment in real time: each day, I made one new scratchboard drawing to add to the series.

Many thanks to all those who came to the exhibition and to the closing reception and to those who left such kind and generous comments for me in writing. You are much appreciated!