Where Are You From?
Bellingham, WA
Where do you long to live (reality or fantasy)?
I yearn to live in a little cabin nestled in the woods of Oregon.
If your artwork could come to life and interact with you, what kind of conversation would you have with it?
We would say to each other that it hurts, but we made it. That there is still beauty in the epilogue of watching our dreams burn up in other people’s flames. Everything fell apart, the only way out was to surrender to the chaos of reality, and appreciate the exquisite sadness of our heart’s destruction.
What is the one statement you could give to your younger self that you would give anything to go back and relay to them at a pivotal moment?
Everything that younger me went through was a canon event. Even in my unlucky moments, I was still carried by luck and the universe it seems takes time to make sense, a story line has to complete it’s arc. Looking back, every lesson I learned the hard way has saved me a thousand times worse future fates.
In what ways do you think your personal experiences and emotions shape the way you connect with your work?
Years ago I made the conscious decision to bury my dreams in my heart. When I paint, I unlock that little cage and let myself honor the strength in sorrow, and deify resilience.
When I was young I thought there was a reason for everything I went through. I thought I was in a movie and that my survival was the whole plot, and that someday it would all make sense.
As a young woman I realized there was no reason for anything, that I was just collateral damage like a house in the path of a tornado. Now I realize that it’s up to me to create meaning from the meaningless.
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What is the most unexpected thing to occur with your work through the years that shifted your perspective in a way you never anticipated?
I didn’t realize how much my art would inspire other people. I’m always so honored and humbled when people show me something that they wrote about my art, or personal meaning they find. Its so fascinating to spend hours painting something, being aware of what narrative I’m trying to achieve, and then have someone explain things they see that I never even considered. That is always so surprising and welcome.
