Hello, my fabulous reader. I'm so glad you're here, even if I can't see or talk to you! I'm currently writing from my new studio space.

It's pretty bare in here — just a few remnants of my old warehouse studio, upcycled and carried over. For instance, I have a desk that's now on the third of its nine lives. It started as a thrift-store find, painted haint blue, and moved into my college apartment. Then it came with me to my warehouse workspace, where it grew battered by gallons of paint and years of drippings. Now it's been sanded down and repainted a chocolate brown, and is awaiting a new marble countertop. Once that's done, it'll be the gem of my new studio. I have a real love for reworking old things and giving them new life.

Now that I'm in this new space, I've been sitting with the question: who am I, and what do I truly want to create?

That's a question I've been asking — and answering, in part — for the past twenty-three years.

To most people, I'm just a young lady with really big hair and a really big heart for art, and for sharing it with others. The art, not the hair... 

Beyond that, I'm in my early twenties, from Arkansas, and I love nature — especially painting it. A few other things about me: I love the look of flare jeans, bare nails, and a generous helping of hair mousse (how else would I achieve gargantuan-sized hair?). I love how my Martin guitar sits propped in the corner of my room — the kind of detail you'd find tucked into a John Hughes movie. I love the sound of a wave crashing into its neighboring shore and pretty much every genre of rock music. I love the feel of cool mornings before the sun has warmed the day. I love the smell of Moroccan oil, sweet and musky. And I love the taste of a freshly cracked-open crisp apple Olipop alongside a good home-cooked meal shared with friends and family.

All of these things make me feel excited about life — little antiques I've picked up, over the years, from some hidden oasis of a thrift store, waiting for me to find my love for them.

But past the surface-level things, who do I really say that I am?

I think a lot of my identity comes from my faith. As a Christian, I want my identity to be a direct reflection of the God who made me — my heart to mirror the heart of God, my actions to parallel the actions of Jesus, my wisdom to flow from the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

While I have my identity as a person, I also have an identity as an artist. I have to remind myself that while art is something I am ardently passionate about, it isn't my sole purpose. The purpose I want to emphasize most is who I am as a daughter of God. I have the privilege of other things being added to that — but I never want to confuse my purpose with my passion. I know that can sound extreme, but as an artist I have to be blunt with myself. Otherwise my purpose becomes driven by circumstantial things: how good my work is, whether people approve of it, and so on. Centering my purpose instead of my passion is what lets me keep a level head — not just as an artist, but as a person.

(Can I just say my use of the word ardently is heavily influenced by Pride and Prejudice. Where are my fellow Austen enthusiasts?)

Moving on — answering this question online feels a little peculiar. In complete transparency, it feels a little self-obsessed. When I write a blog post, I ask myself: who really cares? I don't mean that in a belittling or self-deprecating way, just honestly. Who is my audience, really, and why would they want to hear what I have to say — especially about a question of who I am?

As an artist, I get a lot of questions about who I am and what I do. But I don't feel pressure to over-explain myself or shift my answers depending on who's asking. One thing about me: I'm pretty straightforward, and a little straight-laced. I appreciate when people are upfront, genuine, and simply enjoy being who they are. I've never had a taste for trying to appease others. I'd rather share nothing about my life or my work than pretend to be something I'm not.

Sharing my life and work online doesn't come intuitively to me — yet. (I'm trying to speak life over myself, hence the "yet.:, LOL) When I'm in a deep flow of painting, stopping to take photos or videos of myself pulls me out of the process and into a world of appearances. I think about how other people advertise themselves and their work, and I feel far from that. My life is messy — it isn't curated or perfectly placed to appeal to an audience. I love studying the beauty of the world around me, but my own life doesn't always reflect that the way my work does.

And while I'm on the subject — can we talk about the beauty we've been given in the earth around us? How blessed am I that I get to use my medium to inspect, investigate, and then visually depict the beauty of the things around me. I feel incredibly blessed and highly favored to get to do that as my job. I love studying the way a flower unfurls over time, or waiting eagerly for the first trees of spring to bloom new sprigs of promise for summer. Even the sun rising and falling relays a beautiful message about life and time — food for thought as an artist. Stepping outside gives me ultimate inspiration as an artist.

Can I share where I find my ultimate inspiration as a person?

In college, I was part of a small group of women, led by other college students. Some of the girls I knew from my sorority, others from church, and some were strangers to me. Over the spring semester (I see a seasonal theme here), we studied the Holy Spirit — and looking back, I have to give the women leading it credit, because that's a subject with some grit. One of the things I wrote down in our booklet was this:

"The Holy Spirit is our ultimate inspiration."

I read this sentence about a year after it was initially written. Looking back, that felt like head knowledge when I wrote it. As my faith matured and I got to know God more, what I'd written became heart knowledge — I was transformed from knowing something in my head to feeling it in my heart.

I like to call this the Holy Spirit French press. At first, all the coffee grounds float at the top of the press. But through pressure, time, and a steady hand, they get pressed to the bottom, rendering a cup of coffee. The beautiful thing about this illustration is that once you have something reflective of the maker’s work, you get to pour it into empty vessels — waiting to be witnessed of what you just encountered.

I think it's through experiences like these that we learn more about the God who made us — and who He made us to be. When I think about what I want to pour out into the world, I keep coming back to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I want my work and my character to carry all of it — pressed out of me over time, as a result of God's hand moving in my life.

As I continue to answer the question of who I am, I am very thankful to get to create work that becomes a visual witness of the experiences and times that God has brought me through. And I thank you as an audience and a friend for your support and interest in my work. I am in the middle of moving studio spaces, and can not wait to see the ways I am challenged and comforted in my new area.