Where I’ve Been and Lots of New Things!

Hey Travelers!

I just redesigned my website and have officially re-committed to my art practice. With this has come a lot of changes in my life, in my career, and in my art itself, so I wanted to take some time to explain what that looks like and why.

In the last year, I have been diagnosed with OCD and ADHD, and also have discovered I am on the autism spectrum. This sounds like a lot, and it is, but these discoveries have been incredibly helpful in learning how to successfully take care of myself, which is something I haven’t been doing well in the last few years. I found myself in a place of massive burnout that started with the pandemic and became worse after I graduated college in Spring 2022. In the new year of 2024, I decided to take some time off of work to solely focus on my mental health and re-design my life and career in a way that is sustainable for me. Since then, I’ve begun to come back to myself, learn to be kind to myself and admit what difficulties I have and how to accommodate for them. I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn, but the difference in how I feel now to how I felt a year ago is honestly astounding.

Since graduating, I’ve had a very hard time creating art and enjoying the artistic process. I was frozen and didn’t know what direction to go in or what I wanted to make. I put so much pressure on myself to choose one medium and to make work I thought others would like or work I thought would sell, so I didn’t experiment at all and stayed stagnant. This stayed true until I I began taking medication for the ADHD (my entire person currently brought to you by guanfacine lol) and I began wanting to move and create again. With this and the autism diagnosis, a lot of the last year has been about letting go of the urge to people please and be more confident in myself and what I’m drawn to. This transferred into my art and I’ve discovered two things:

I don’t have to choose a medium, I am allowed to jump around and make art in any way that I want because art is fake and there are no rules.
I do not need to make art with the caveat of appealing to others. There is nothing wrong with the art I want to make and there is an audience for everything. I need to stand up for my art and myself if I want a successful career that I also enjoy.

These points are easier to say than to believe and put into action, but I am doing my best to make them the basis of my practice. And this brings us to now! I have found myself largely gravitating towards painting, drawing, and illustration for possibly the first time ever. I still plan to make ceramic and glass work, but I have become okay with drifting in and out of different media when it feels right.

Since I’ve been frozen, I’ve found myself with very little recent art to put on this fancy new website. I will update the site frequently with new pieces now that I’m creating again, but if you want more real-time updates, follow me on Instagram or Tik Tok :).

My current goals are based on gaining an online following and community, so if you have anyone that you think might enjoy my art, please send my social media their way! I am planning on being very active with oil painting and creating marker drawings/spreads in my sketchbook. I am starting out slow, but I’m hoping by the end of the year I will have a current body of work to show. Here are some peeks at what I have been working on lately: