About

I have always loved mysterious places and was naturally curious growing up. Grandparents on both sides of my family lived during the depression and we would visit their houses every summer. Both houses had attics storing old furniture, and toys left behind by from when my aunts and uncles were growing up, which I explored. My Grandpa's house on my mom's side also had an art studio, and I thought that was fascinating. There were paintings everywhere around the house made by my family members and it was an important part of our culture. I didn't know this until two years ago, but my Grandma on my Dad's side also painted. When she died, they lined up her art on a table and it was really impressive. One of my prized possessions is a painting of hers.

I grew up in Seattle where it's foggy, always smells like rain, and has a lower value key in general. But, where there are clouds and mountains, there are also hikes that lead you above them, and that is why I love Seattle. The landscapes are beautiful and have been a source of inspiration unintended in my paintings.

Developing my own style and freedom was something I struggled with when I was a teen. In high school, I learned the important lesson of self-expression from a girl in my home-ec class who drew elaborate word art. When I asked her how she knew what to do, she said she just did whatever she wanted. So I adopted that philosophy and drew whatever I wanted and started giving drawings away as birthday gifts to my friends.

At the age of 25, I was living on my own, and working three jobs. When I did land a job with decent pay, I took the chance to start taking art commissions on the side. However a couple of years in that job, my whole department got laid off except for me and my job changed to where I was doing more manual labor again. My back started going out regularly because of a car wreck a few years prior and I kept having to ask people for help. Having a specific skill set and getting a degree became even more urgent so I enrolled in an Undergraduate Program for Business. A Bachelor's in Fine art was my first choice, however, I needed a degree that would be relevant, but still fit my work schedule.

After drawing commissions for a couple of years on the side, I decided I would like to learn how to paint, but I didn't want to pay for it yet because I didn't know if I'd be good at it. I made a goal to paint 100 paintings that I liked and then I could quit if I wanted. During this time, I became involved in the monthly Seattle artwalk in different parts of the city as well as the Evergreen Associate of Fine Arts juried shows. It's an experience I am very thankful for. I met artists from all over Washington, and learned more about show set up and breakdown. I even was given the opportunity to talk about my art for an EAFA presentation, which was an amazing experience.

It took me six years to finish because I was getting my Bachelor's in Business at the same time, however, I made a secondary goal to paint every day, even if it was just 10 minutes. I was inspired by abstract artists, such as Cody Hooper, Mark Yearwood, Russell Stephenson, Cristina Popovici. A lot of my early work focused on the effects of layering paint rather and the painting looked like impressions of the Seattle Skyline. I wasn't good, but I did a reflection on each session and wrote down something I learned - whether it was good or bad.

One focus of study I completed for my own curiosity was how to create a color pallet based on mood. I came up with the idea when I was bored and decided to search the college library for an article on Color Psychology that I had learned about in my Marketing class. The article already had color pallets made based on the mood and description words for each mood. I decided to do a blind experiment. I cut up the words and put them in a bag, pulled a word out, and used excel to fill a cell with the color that I thought matched that word. After I had found a color for all the words, I put them back into the mood categories and had 5-6 different color pallets. Then I created paintings with them.

Another study I did was based on color relationships. I studied the way Mark Mehaffey and Cody Hooper used color. They had a way of really making colors glow based on the color next to it. I knew complementary colors brought attention to each other and after I had completed the 100 paintings and my degree, I rented a studio for a year in 2017 and completed a series of paintings exploring the color cadmium red. I layered full saturated Cad red in between muted layers of warm and cool greens with different opacities until it gave the effect of stained glass. By the time the series was completed, I felt ready to pursue my masters. I held a large art auction and decided to go back to school for my MFA, which I am currently at the midpoint of completion and working on my thesis, "The Door is Open."

“I promise if you keep searching for everything beautiful in this world you will eventually become it.” –Tyler Kent White