As humans we have a need and desire for intimacy and connection with others. We have a need to find relatability, relationships and connections in the other through mind and body. Deprived of intimacy in my everyday relations, I have developed a strong need for physical and emotional intimacy with my process and subject. I work with watercolor pencils in both a sensitive and crude manner using my sweat and saliva, hands and fingers to manipulate the material onto paper. This personal and direct connection, much like caressing or grooming an animal, gives me the intimacy I need in the work as I bring the animal into being. This intimacy is both constructive and destructive, laced equally with desire and fear, presence and absence. Drawing becomes a place for intimacy that allows for ‘touching’ the subject when actual touch is at once desired and daunting.