To the strange women, magic makers, and wild creatives. The ones who never felt they belonged in this ordinary world and are done trying to fit in (if they ever even cared to try). The ones who prefer to spend their time connecting with the natural world, who look to the old ways and primal nature of human beings – our animal instincts, who love things made by hand – theirs or anothers, uniquely made with care, and who find beauty in the darkness and the dream. I welcome you here, where I’ll share my perspectives and inspiration, my art, and my creations.
My art has been described as dark and ethereally beautiful. My influences are folk art, turn of the 20th-century art, vintage print, nature, and magic. I’m inspired by what’s unraveled in the pursuit of creative dreams and that which rises from the darkness within, the things we don’t want to look at in our modern world or that we’ve been told to bury deep down, and the journey to discover what makes us truly uniquely us, the darkness and the dream. I work in oil paint, gouache, linocut block printing, and mixed media, tending towards natural materials and surfaces. Sometimes I consider myself a folk artist, as I’m not only influenced by folk art but also in drawing from traditional arts and crafts, the lost arts, and making for function as well as beauty. More of this will be seen in some coming projects. It’s my hope that my art helps you feel deeply and boldly express yourself.
I’m growing to hate labels more and more. On this website, you’ll find my art, but you’ll also find more – it’s a home for all the things I create as a maker and visionary dreamer. My story of how I got here, and how I came to shun labels, begins with wanting to be a working artist for as long as I can remember. When I had to seriously begin considering a career as a teen, I was guided away from art and towards a more practical path. As a multi-passionate, I embarked on a whirlwind of career explorations in my early twenties. Over and over again, I returned to my creative dreams and my desire to be an artist. I ultimately fell back on the skills I learned in high school working as a graphic designer at a weekly newspaper and started my own business as a graphic, stationery, and web designer.
The journey of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life was quite frustrating while I was in it, but as I look back on it, I gained a variety of experiences and perspectives. It’s through this eclectic experience that labels are more easily shunned, for how can you even begin to classify it? Still, I would go back in a heartbeat and choose art school over again. Art school isn’t necessary to become an artist, but it’s an experience I wish I had chosen in spite of the outside noise.
Even as I pursued my own business, I found myself going down a path that was expected, listening to cookie-cutter advice of so-called experts or those who had found success. Now, however, I’m letting go of all those expectations and illusions, especially the sneaky ones that lie hiding under the surface, and finding my way, doing my own thing, and allowing myself to be guided by all my creative inspirations, to change and to explore, and to not need to fit into a box or a label.
One of these sneaky expectations is social media. As artists, creative business owners, and visionary dreamers, we’re expected to be on social media, even though artists and businesses existed long before social media, and social media isn’t even necessarily the most supportive thing for a business. For now, I’ve decided to leave social media, possibly checking in seasonally or annually. I will share in more detail about my decision to leave social media in my next post. For now, I’ll say I have never felt great on social media as we know how it can impact mental health, I don’t want what I create to be dictated or guided by an algorithm, I believe it gives us a false sense of connection as well as a warped perspective and way of interacting with the world and others, and I’d rather spend my time elsewhere, making, creating, and engaging with life and the real world.
This is where I choose to share instead. I’d like to say I’ll be sharing behind the scenes of my art and creations, creative process, and inspiration, but it will likely be more than that. I’m open to letting it evolve and allowing myself to explore throughout all of my creations, including this blog.
I would love to invite you to join me by following my blog on an RSS feed like Feedly, joining my newsletter, and visiting my shop to view my available artwork and creations. You can also find my work at The House of Lost Arts, where I offer guidance on unearthing who we are beneath modernity to live out our wild, creative nature.
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