Collaboration

3 years ago my oldest walked into studio asking to paint. I had a 7x9ft canvas that I wasn’t ready to tackle so I said sure, let’s start here. For a bit of time we were lost in his world of color and blobs and no sense of mistakes. Every few months over the next 2 years he’d come in and repeat the process. Never afraid. Always ready.

How “In Bloom” started 3 years ago

A few years later his baby brother entered our lives. It was the newborn phase all over again but with a different perspective on sacrifice and brilliance. “When Light Breaks In”, a series on parenting during the sacred hours between dusk and dawn, came from that time, as did a newfound courage to tackle some giants.

I love that this painting, “In Bloom”, starts with my first and ends with my last, glimpses of my oldest’s wild strokes and color choices peeking through the deep hues on the canvas, a reminder that courage is a choice and that boldness lives in us. In the desert it can seem an impossible place for the living and yet there is thriving through incredible adaptation and transformation for those that call it home, a reminder that we can go through seasons of impossibility and still find belonging and hope ahead.

“In Bloom” | 2025 | 86 1/2 x 118 in

Repurposing

“New Beginnings” was made long after I finished the last of the original collection. I still had such big feelings after finishing the collection last spring so I made 3 larger works continuing the theme of parenting in those delicate and intimate hours between dusk and dawn. All 3 canvases had previous paint strokes on them, art pieces from the past that were dug out of storage and given a new life. My kids have given me so much—so much joy, so much transformation, so many more dreams than I could have imagined. There has been suffering (my sleep bank is constantly teetering on empty) but their brightness in my life is blinding. I am who I have always been and still yet this new being in the making.

“New Beginnings” | 2025 | 40×60 inches