I was a little girl who loved to make art, but I didn't believe in myself. I looked at everyone else's work and thought mine paled in comparison. I was not good enough. What I created felt imperfect, unworthy. So I walked away before I had even left elementary school.

I envied people who could create. I was convinced I simply didn't have it in me. Art was an innate blessing, something you were either born with or not. I held that belief for a very long time.

Then life became chaotic, and I had no choice but to get still. In that stillness, something surfaced, a desire I had been carrying since childhood. The desire to create. To learn. To finally find out what I was capable of.

So I said yes to that desire. And I discovered I had it in me all along.

For many years, I worked as a Myofascial Release Therapist. That work taught me that we carry everything in our body, our fears, our doubts, and the beliefs we hold about who we are and what we deserve. Those beliefs can become the greatest resistance of all. But when we allow ourselves to truly feel and acknowledge what we hold, everything can begin to shift and heal.

Painting is a similar therapy, in a different language. I move color the way I worked with the body, with presence, with deep respect for what might be ready to surface. It gives my held emotions somewhere to go. Every painting is a reminder to that little girl and to me that she could do it.

I paint for the joy of it, and to set down what I no longer need to hold. I paint for connection, not to show you how I feel, but to create a moment where you can pause and reclaim the parts of yourself you have set aside.

So if something stirs when you stand in front of my work, don't be surprised. It was created by my joyful younger self to resolve whatever I've been carrying.