I was an arty kid: I painted the easel instead of the paper in preschool. I drew a copy of a Michelangelo horse in pencil on my desktop in 4th grade. The only As I got in school were in art and gym. I went to, and dropped out of, art school many years ago and only secretly called myself an artist until recently. I've kept my foot in the waters and became more serious about my practice when I moved back to St. Louis from California in 2010. When I wasn’t making, I was depressed. I joined a group of resident artists at Concrete Ocean Studios and Gallery in early 2019, but it wasn't until the Pandemic that I got my priorities in line and began, in earnest, to call myself an artist and showing my work on Instagram. I’m taking steps toward creating bodies of work that are mindful in their execution. I'm interested in the natural world, how humans distort it, and finding some kind of sanctuary where we are allowed to just be.

For the last year, the media I have worked with are tidy things that I can put away at the end of the day at home. Colored pencils, watercolor, water-soluble graphite, and Derwent’s Inktense pencils and blocks. I’ve used colored pencil since I was a child, and always considered it a lesser medium. But with limited space - a corner of our sofa in the living room - I was able to use them in a new way, layering colors in broad swaths to suggest landscapes, spaces, objects. The multiple layers of color - I don’t use solvents to blend the pigments - suggest a depth in their flatness. I sometimes use colored pencils on top of, or with water-soluble media for additional depth. I’ve found joy in the use of them.

I only recently returned to my studio space - all the artists are vaccinated now - and began hesitantly to paint again. I look forward to incorporating the mistakes and successes I had with my home-bound art into my painting practice, while still working in pencil and watercolor.