When Charlize started tapping maple trees 35 years ago, she appeared to the world as a different person with a different name. In those days she worked as a construction worker, then a shop teacher, then a home builder. “I learned to accept what I had, which was being a male,” she says. Only when she reached her seventh decade did she find it possible to express her true identity as a transgender woman. In retirement, Charlize’s work is now on her farm, Sweet Sourland, tucked away in a still quiet corner of New Jersey. Here, in addition to producing syrup and raising sheep, she pursues a lifelong passion for creating art. Her specialty is colorful geometric designs painted on unusual canvases such as glass and wood. Meditative pieces that inspire introspection.

"Life is a canvas."