"Life is Golden" invites viewers into an act of discovery, asking what we might notice about the living world if we bring careful attention to our surroundings.

The piece poses a simple question: if we're willing to search patiently for painted bees, what might we begin to see about the real ones that move quietly through our daily lives? The work unfolds through over three dozen bees, each one painted on a vitelline membrane - that thin, translucent layer surrounding an egg yolk. These materials demand reverence; they tear at the slightest misjudgment, requiring the kind of delicate touch that becomes meditative. Each painted membrane finds its way back into its eggshell, and I place these painted eggshells on the canvas in unexpected angles with the bees tucked into corners where eyes don't naturally fall.

The fragility of these membranes mirrors the natural systems we depend on, their delicate surfaces echoing the care our world requires. When someone finally discovers one of the hidden bees, there's a moment of genuine delight - the satisfaction of finding something that wasn't freely given, something that required curiosity and persistence to locate. Through this experience of seeking and finding, the piece becomes a meditation on attention itself, on learning to look with intention.