The people in my life are my biggest inspirations. I glean energy and motivation from those who I find have lofty and noble dreams.  Ben wants to create a community of wholeness and acceptance in OKC. Lucille wants to report on political policy and connect people in Raleigh, NC. Julie wants to practice sustainable architecture and build beautiful things. Lillie wants to guide her young therapy patients into healing and growth. My mom wants to enstill desire and excitement for leaning into her students.  I’m inspired by people that find things, commit themselves fully and wholeheartedly to those things, and accept the lessons, struggles, and triumphs that rear their heads along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hobbies? Things you want to do?

I love tinkering and making things with my hands. I’m very fidgety and restless in that way, even folding restaurant straw paper into perfect squares is so cathartic to me. My most recent fixation is little needle felted animals. It’s my life long dream to be a crazy aunty, so I’m planning on starting my journey strong by crafting needle felted baby mobiles for my friend’s little tiny sugie babes.

 

 

What’s exciting you right now? 

I’ve been entranced by working with soft pastels for a while now. I find using pastel as a medium to be an incredibly difficult practice, but I love the tonality and expression that the pigments create. I’ve been learning what it means to work “with” a medium instead of simply “use” it. When I work “with” the pastel, I’m able to relax into the process and let go of any tightly held visions in have for what I’m creating. Inviting the mess of the pigment into the piece and allowing it to shine through fully has been a transformative realization. It doesn’t seem like my soft pastel obsession is dying down anytime soon, and I feel incredibly excited knowing that I’ve hardly scratched the surface in my painting journey.     

 

Heart goals?

When I think of my deepest desires, I find that the details change constantly, but the root of my goal has remained steadfast as I’ve grown. I came across a beautiful illustration of that root goal in a letter written by author Kate DiCamillo:

 

“Here’s a question for you: Have you ever asked an auditorium full of kids if they know and love Charlotte’s Web? In my experience, almost all of the hands go up. And if you ask them how many of them cried when they read it, most of those hands unabashedly stay aloft. My childhood best friend read Charlotte’s Web over and over again as a kid. She would read the last page, turn the book over, and begin again. A few years ago, I asked her why. “What was it that made you read and reread that book?” I asked her. “Did you think that if you read it again, things would turn out differently, better? That Charlotte wouldn’t die?” “No,” she said. “It wasn’t that. I kept reading it not because I wanted it to turn out differently or thought that it would turn out differently, but because I knew for a fact that it wasn’t going to turn out differently. I knew that a terrible thing was going to happen, and I also knew that it was going to be okay somehow. I thought that I couldn’t bear it, but then when I read it again, it was all so beautiful. And I found out that I could bear it.  That was what the story told me. That was what I needed to hear. That I could bear it somehow….

 

My favorite lines of Charlotte’s Web, the lines that always make me cry, are toward the end of the book. They go like this: “These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days…”

 The excerpt presses so deeply on every part of my heart. Throughout my artwork, relationships or daily life, my “heart goal”, is to walk through it all as bravely and openly as I can accepting and learning from the passing fear, joy, sorrow and peace that will inevitably come to find me.

 

 

Favorite vintage piece you own? 

Years ago my grandma picked up a beaded jean jacket in Santa Fe, NM. It found its way into my moms closet and she wore it for yeas until turning it over to me. (I stole it from her closet) It has playful blue and green beading, beautiful silver buttons and stunning patchwork.