We weren't supposed to know we were beautiful or sexy.

I believe that stories like mine are common, but it isn’t common to tell them through the medium of art. The reason I left the church of my childhood was so I could have the freedom to create and to say what I needed to. Religion is good, in its place, but when religion suppresses the truth, it is self-serving and harmful. My hope is to always tell the truth with my art, to inspire, to enlighten, and to heal.

I didn’t realize why inner beauty was so important until I began to grow up. Inner beauty was important because outer beauty was dangerous. Inner beauty and outer beauty were diametrically opposed warriors.

I knew I wasn’t beautiful outwardly, so, like other girls my age, I learned how to be inwardly beautiful. I wanted to leave beauty wherever my fingerprints landed, whether it was a dress, a childhood, or a painting.

“I always took my art seriously— sometimes a bit too seriously. I thought that selling my art would be a bit like selling my soul. Thankfully, my beliefs around art and what it means to be an artist have shifted. It started with an encouraging partner, who was convinced that my art had a message that people needed to hear.”

“Growing up in a culture that thinks in black and white is easy—until something happens that shatters your black and white paradigm. Then, it’s the hardest thing in the world. All the things you thought were bad—depression, anxiety, sadness, cynicism, bitterness, anger, hatred— they’re all inside you. And religion dictates that there is no place for them in a good person. So, you’re left to stifle them, to pretend they aren’t there, to pray them out of you, and to watch in utter confusion as you lose sight of the person you thought you were.”

“I imagine this painting as the moment you wake up one morning and realize that you are glad that you’re here after all. You step outside just as the sun begins to make everything golden and sparkling. The sunlight falls on your face, and it is warm and soft and delicious. Half in shadow, half in light, you pause, and realize for the first time in months, you are glad to be alive.”

“Recently, I’ve been thinking about talent versus skill. I wonder how much we are born with, and how much we develop our skills along the way. Is talent a mystery embedded in our DNA, or is it a skill that one develops and sharpens with hours upon hours of practice?”

“This, in a nutshell, is the universal problem of artists—artists are too often ‘damned if they do, damned if they don’t’—unless they’re dead.  They are judged for creating art to please themselves, but if they create art to please other people, they aren’t original anymore. Artists are critiqued and judged by everyone, because it is the nature of an artist to be judged. That’s what they do. They create masterpieces out of nothing—but at the end of the day, the people decide whether a masterpiece has merit or not. The people who ‘get it' love them. The people who don’t understand feel uncomfortable. And at the end of the day, people live and die along with their opinions, while great art lives forever.”

“The sunlight hits the tree, bright and warm. You know it will soon bathe you in golden, glittering light. Your skin will dry, and it will warm you, inside out. Two birds dance across the sky, disappearing into the brilliance of the sun. Their wings flash golden in the light. You watch in quiet awe. This is a moment you will remember forever, a moment that stamps itself on your lonely soul, a moment that you were chasing and didn’t realize it.

This is an epiphany. This is hope.”