My name is Tiffany Matheson. As a teenager I would work on and off for an herbalist in her shop, and that kind of brought this greater awareness of plants and their ability to heal us. I spent three years at the Center for Herbal Studies, and now making art full time. 

With plants and medicine, that desire to heal never really went away. I had a particular experience with a plant called Iboga. My fiance and I went down to Costa Rica, and we sat with Iboga; it's used by the Bwiti tribe as part of their coming of age initiations, but their core belief is your connection to nature and how society and a lot of the problems that we have come from our disconnect from nature. It changed everything for me, and I had a pivotal experience that changed how I see the world, how I see myself. I grew up with a lot of trauma, and it helped me to begin this healing journey. 

So I’m creating an art piece for a show in Wyoming that focuses on Iboga and sharing this magical plant with the rest of the world. Plants are amazing, like on our walk earlier, we were talking about willow; the Native Americans use it, they boil the bark and take it to relieve headaches. It's an anti-inflammatory and it's actually the chemical compound that we now make aspirin from. I think all these ancient traditions where you connect with nature as therapy…having the ability to heal physically and mentally helps us to become better and more complete human beings.