And So A Blog Was Born

I'm excited to anounce the start of something big. Something new.. a series of complete vulnerability into the mind's eye and subconscious, chalkfull of emotional momentum; an evolution of soul and spirit healing.

But first... You should know my story.

Maybe it's also your story.. or your daughter's, sister's, aunt's, friend's, brother's, son's, or neighbor's story, too.

I'll start here - I'm a survivor. I didn't always realize this though.

In fact, it took me nearly four years to believe this, and in some ways I still have to actively and intentionally choose this mindset over feeling like a victim.

I was married before. I had been married for three years and had a newborn when I finally left (the second time).

Long story short, omitting many details and painful memories, my (now ex-) husband put me in the hospital in January of 2020. The abuse had been ongoing for a while at that point.

Once the cat was out of the bag, if you will, my family didn't allow me the decision to stay.. not this time. Had they not, I'm not sure I would have found the courage to leave. And for the first few months it was certainly their strength that carried me day by day, getting me dressed and out of bed, and not by my own volition that I survived.

Enter March of 2020, and the worldwide disaster of COVID hits alongside my own universe already being completely upside down.

With so much overwhelming disaster both outside (covid) and inside (my heart broken and family dreams gone), I stopped painting. And for three years, I briefly pursued a short-lived job in personal training instead. I found myself spiraling into bodybuilding and devloped an extremely unhealthy and obsessive lifestyle, running from my true self in an effort to invent a new person and identity. This made sense to me because if I was a new individual in appearance and job and location, then the person who all of the muck happened to was no longer there.. as in I was no longer her.. right? I was in the best physical shape of my life while simultaneously being absolutley mentally miserable. But turns out trying to invent a new persona, in order to outrun a history of painful memories and trauma, doesn't actually work.

Fast forward to fall of 2023 when I got pink eye in both eyes, the flu, and developed a stress fracture in a bone in my right ankle.. ALL at once. Left with the inability to do much of anything aside from sit and rest, I started to paint again. It was cathartic and scary all at once. There were a lot of horrid memories I had to face when putting stylus to tablet, as many a time abuse had happened when I tried to sit down to paint. He had hated it when I enjoyed anything... especially finding joy in my calling of painting.

So one evening in November of 2023, after my son was asleep and the house was quiet, I sat down, giant air cast and all, with that once familiar desire to create. Despite being terrified that I would now be a horrendous artist, and that what once brought me so much joy would only bring me pain now, I decided to go ahead and try again. And out popped a little blue bird - I went to bed smiling that night.

And then over the next few days.. a little orange and yellow parrot flew out..

I felt closer to the me I had once been.. recognizing a side of myself that had been longing to re-emerge for a very very long time.

On a Saturday while football played in the background, a reindeer seemed to nearly draw itself, and just in time for the Christmas season!

Soon after one of Santa's elite flyers was complete (aka little line work reindeer above), I started EMDR therapy. (EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). During my first few sessions, I was diagnosed with PTSD and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder.

I was a mess, and mentally floundering... but I decided to still continue to paint.. picking back up in what was once the biggest part of who I was, and the best form of self expression I had ever embraced.

Feeling led to follow a specific path in painting (after having dipped my toes back in the water by completing the above animals), I began a deep dive into a focus on realistic figurative paintings with a series of canvases that could both tell standalone tales as well as a story visually strung together, piece by piece. I'm now creating a painting every week/week and a half in an effort to display what healing from trauma looks like visually - in progression of subject matter and style, and to additionally document how the process of healing affects the way in which creativity manifests itself within each portrait and visual story told.

I now have a few girls completed within this series already.. (nicknamed "the girls" as they are all portraits of distressed or numb women at this point).

Next year, in late fall of 2024, I plan to transport all 30" X 40" (and bigger) 50+ canvases and set them up for their own solo exhibition, where they can tell their story, my story, and maybe your story, too.

But as I'm hoping will come to fruition painting by painting, we'll witness a turn from dark and torn and injured to a depiction of brave and confident.. an emenation of joy even. Because I believe healing is possible. I hope you believe, too.

This is the start of that journey.

While I intend to blog about all parts of my careeer as an artist, the series will be a very large vein within the sea of roots I share.

(I have received so much support from strangers (who I now consider supporters, allies, and friends) and family alike in pursuing this series.. THANK YOU to all of you. If you are interested in financially supporting this process in any way, which allows me to spend more time painting and makes the printing of each canvas feasible, please visit THIS PAGE).