My relationship to the natural world, taking time to watch it evolve and change, also leads to self examination. Inspiring observations on my own aging and inner landscape, I've used self portraiture to reflect on my experience in society as a woman. The three works here are 25 years in the making, tracing my perception, belief in and definition of self. They examine changes, physical, emotional and mental, that are largely influenced by a wash of hormones. This transformation is profound, a sort of alchemy embedded in my cells – embedded in every woman's cells. 

Science shows that during the first two years of life, a female child's ovaries pump adult levels of estrogen. Then, again in puberty, hormones dramatically reorganize her brain circuitry, driving the way she thinks, feels, acts; and obsesses over her looks. Ostensibly to enhance her chances of procreation, this becomes her reality and sense of self for an unknown period of time – in the range of 40 years. It effects her treatment by society, family, and herself. 

Eventually, this reverses course and she undergoes another transformation directed by her hormones – a slow and uncertain turn toward menopause. This time the alchemy, and the woman, is essentially ignored by modern medicine. Yet no other primates, and only a few other mammals (certain species of whales), live meaningfully beyond reproductive age, as female homo sapiens do. Evolutionary science has just begun to discern the reasons behind this, and has few answers as of yet.