Throughout the course of my artistic career, I have always held the desire of including natural elements within my pieces. Fueled by my love for adventure, much of my art contains scenes from rafting mighty rivers, climbing up extraordinary mountains, and so much more. As a person who often utilizes creativity to express my passions, my overarching goal when creating this exhibition was to compile a number of my pieces that I feel represent the theme of the unique and unexplainable connection that humans have to the ecosystems that they are surrounded by. Growing up in the rural Alaska community of McCarthy, I feel that I have experienced extreme connections to my environment in such a way that I recognize the immense importance of protecting it for future generations. As I have progressed as both an artist and a person, the involvement I have had in the environmental and social justice movement has moved my art out of solely landscape pieces, to artworks that either send a message or demonstrate a deeper connection to the earth and its inhabitants. As I have swayed between various styles such as pen and ink stippling, watercolor, acrylic, collage, and so much more, the constant that has remained the same within my pieces is my appreciation for the natural world around. As a collective whole, I feel that this exhibition demonstrates the artistic process I have gone through by showcasing several adventure inspired art pieces, advocacy pieces, and more abstract pieces, all of which are derived from my roots in the Copper River watershed which prompt my desire to explore. The way I chose to lay out my pieces in my exhibition has a lot to do with my priorities and progression as an artist, compared to the chronological order in which the pieces were created. In the top left corner, the map of the Copper river watershed helps the viewer recognize the connection of this region to the other pieces showcased. To the right of the map, the Pacuare rafting piece as well as the other two rafting stippling pieces help portray the sentimental connection that I as an artist have to the rafting culture and how I have grown up interacting with my environment. Below that, I included a circular collage of my community swimming hole in McCarthy, Alaska because that is a place that is very sentimental to me and has inspired my passion for advocacy. When we look beneath the map, the first piece is a design that represents many values within Alaska native culture and how they are interwoven into their environment. Additionally, my Alaska Climate strikes poster and screen print demonstrates that overtime I have taken my love for the environment and implemented it into advocacy. To the right of that I included a 3-D pottery set that I created of marine life due to some of my drive for environmental action being based on observing ocean pollution. The two pieces on the furthest right represent me taking all of the care I have for the earth and channeling it into creative thinking and appreciating the small things. Both of these pieces represent taking natural elements and organizing them in a simplistic and playful way. On top of all of these pieces, the Koi fish collage is a piece inspired by a trip I took to Hawaii and demonstrates the importance of approaching environmental advocacy in a calm and collective manner. In order to give my exhibition a balanced appearance, I placed an amaryllis flower in the bottom right corner because it is a flower that represents determination and strength, tying into the importance of standing up for what we believe in and finding beauty in all of the world's natural wonders. Overall, through this exhibition I strive for my audience to recognize the incomparable connection that a human can have to the environment and prompt them to feel more driven to immerse themselves in the ecosystems they are surrounded by.