A LITTLE BIT ABOUT MOI.

It’s been a beautiful mess all along the way…

When I was a kid, I took permanent markers and decorated my parent's piano keys, found ways to paint anything on anything, and even sold paintings door to door in my neighborhood as a first grader. Thank you Mrs. Pfister for actually buying one.

But art, and being an artist in some form has always been in my veins. It is soothing, it is therapeutic, and it's my happy place. 

I've studied and trained in different forms all of my life (Oils, photography, graphic design). My schooling took me from a studio in Iowa to warehouses in Minneapolis, the canals of Venice (Italy, although I worked in Venice, California for a bit too), and the countryside in Aix-En-Provence, France (with my backpack and paints in tow). I’ve kept on learning and growing as an artist through all of life’s journeys across the globe ever since.

Well, as life sometimes does, what we love to do gets pushed aside. In my case, it was putting brush to paper or canvas, and my art.

Then, when I started my blog, Goldfish Kiss, back in 2010, I began to regularly sketch and paint again in a cool little watercolor book. As I posted more and more pics of pages and pieces, more and more people would ask if I sold my art if they could buy a print, or if they could commission me to do a painting for them. All of my formal training was in oils, but watercolor…it ended up being a perfect fit for so many reasons. It needs water, is always changing and hard to predict. Kind of like my life.

After having my son, Levi, art-making became an even more sacred time, and it kind of took off. More emotion was put into each piece and less thinking. It was my at-home escape to places my heart longed to be or a feeling I wanted to recreate. Things got messy, much more colorful, and well, a helluva lot more fun.

So, thank you so much for supporting my love for art, and helping me get back to doing what my soul craves.

I have to pinch myself knowing there are people all over the globe with pieces of my art in their homes or workplaces, or that I’ve been a part of exhibitions in Tokyo and Belgium. But the icing on the cake is hearing a piece resonated with someone on a personal level. It’s all proof rad stuff can happen even in small messy spaces (aka my office/messy nook with zero natural light.)

Cheers to art, and embracing wherever it takes us.

And I forgot, thank you, Mrs. Watkins. I think you bought a painting when I sold them door to door too.