For the 2025 Long Beach Island Plein Air Event, I was drawn to a single theme—the living marshes of the island. My paintings explore these wetlands in all their moods, shifting with the tides and the passing of the day. This particular work was created at the LBI Art and Science Foundation’s nature reserve, where the marsh reveals its hidden abundance.

Here, ribbed mussels cluster in great numbers, and when the tide reaches just the right moment, they part their shells to feed, turning the water into a quiet, pulsing rhythm of life. Within the scene, I’ve tucked small secrets of the marsh—a fiddler crab resting on the bottom, a blue claw crab lurking in the shallows, minnows flickering like quicksilver beneath the surface.

The marsh is never still; it breathes with an intricate chorus of creatures—animals, birds, fish, and insects—all woven together in a tapestry of constant, vibrant motion.