I have been an artist for as long as I can remem­ber. I was born in Den­ver, Col­orado and short­ly after, moved to Ger­many as my Air Force father was sta­tioned there. While trav­el­ing around Europe, my moth­er dis­cov­ered I had an artis­tic call­ing at the ten­der age of 3. I was bored and asked my mom what I should do, so she gave me a pen­cil and some paper and said I should draw the flags at the cen­ter of the camp­ground we were stay­ing at. Expect­ing sticks and box­es at the most, my moth­er was sur­prised to see poles with the finial on top, the flags furled, the Stars and Stripes of the Amer­i­can flag, the Swiss cross, and the Ger­man stripes. My mom announced to my dad “I think we have a lit­tle artist on our hands.”

Through­out my child­hood, my par­ents did their best to nur­ture my skills and tal­ents, even aid­ing in attend­ing The Art Insti­tute of Seat­tle as a young woman to gain more prac­ti­cal artis­tic skills. I didn’t give art school my best efforts, and my father was bat­tling can­cer while I was attend­ing. I have an Asso­ciate of Applied Arts degree, but the truth was I was far more inter­est­ed in fine arts than what my Fash­ion Illus­tra­tion degree promised.

Two months after grad­u­at­ing, my father lost his bat­tle with can­cer. This sent me on a down­ward spi­ral and I cre­at­ed spo­rad­i­cal­ly over the years, play­ing with water­col­or and col­ored pen­cil Celtic knots, but spent most of that time between then and now set­tling for unful­fill­ing office work and drown­ing myself with far too much alco­hol. I bat­tled fear and doubt in my poten­tial as an artist, as many artists do, result­ing in self-sab­o­tage and bel­ly­ing up to the local bar instead.

These days, I’m near­ly 4 years sober and I hit the reboot but­ton on my life. My faith has brought me out of that dark pit and my love for cre­at­ing art has returned with a joy and pas­sion that I’ve nev­er expe­ri­enced before.

I’m cur­rent­ly learn­ing oil paint­ing from Evolve artist online, and explor­ing dif­fer­ent medi­ums and styles. The first year I was sober just so hap­pened to be 2020 and dur­ing that chal­leng­ing time, I dis­cov­ered my love of cre­at­ing art again. I dis­cov­ered paint pour­ing and found it to be ther­a­peu­tic, heal­ing, and it became a gate­way to redis­cov­er­ing that joy in cre­at­ing with­out fear. Plus, it saved me finan­cial­ly because peo­ple want­ed to buy my pours! I also enjoy cre­at­ing ani­mal por­traits in col­ored pen­cil as real­is­ti­cal­ly as I can.

I love the idea of com­bin­ing real­ism and abstract, so I’ve been play­ing around with paint pours again and seek­ing to com­bine my real­is­tic draw­ings and the paint pours in a col­lage and using sten­cils with gel medi­um for effect. It’s all a work in progress as I am still devel­op­ing my voice and style.

I am pro­found­ly grate­ful to God for this sec­ond chance at life and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be the artist I was cre­at­ed to be. I am hon­ored to stew­ard these gifts and cre­ate as a gift back to my sav­ior and to hope­ful­ly bring joy and bless­ing to those who might like it.