One doesn’t just “fall into things,” though that is partially true of me. The truth runs deeper than that. In many ways, my life was a long preparation for the work I do now — even in times when I did not yet understand what I was being prepared for.

While I was in high school, a visiting artist pulled me aside and told me I could paint a mural. I knew exactly which building I wanted to paint and even which classmates I wanted beside me. What stopped me was not the painting itself. It was everything around it. I did not know how to write the proposal, build a budget, price the work, get the equipment, or ask the right adults for help. I was excited, but I was also intimidated, and I let the fear of not knowing take over.

I kept making art, but I did not pursue painting murals professionally. I let that first possibility pass and tucked the idea quietly away.

After high school, I took jobs that gave me a paycheck and found ways to keep being creative on the side — as a hobby, through holiday decorating, at events, and in smaller personal projects.

I did not go straight to college. Instead, I worked my way into better jobs through self-learning and informal training, eventually landing roles that appealed to my inner artist because they carried a creative component, especially web design and related creative work. I loved that world and believed that was the professional path I was building toward.

That belief stayed with me even when I finally went to college as an adult student after being laid off. At the time, I still thought I was there to earn the degree I needed to better compete in the job market and continue on in web or UI/UX design. During college — first at Framingham State University, and then while studying abroad at Griffith University, Queensland College of Art, South Bank, Brisbane, Australia — my innate interest in art and my raw creative instincts were exposed to new ways of thinking, seeing, and making.

I’m including the above photos from Katoomba as a nod to one of the first art-connected experiences that opened me in a profound way. During that student trip into the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, west of Sydney, we hiked mountain trails, rode the steep Scenic Railway, visited the Three Sisters at Echo Point, and spent time at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. Especially meaningful were the private presentations and immersive painted experiences connected to the Gundungurra people. With their guidance, I added my own handprints and painted marks to that wall, and in return the experience itself left a permanent mark on my heart and mind. Coupled with the places we visited just before Katoomba and all that followed once we moved on to Brisbane for the university portion of our study abroad experience, it expanded my understanding of art as something immersive, grounded in place, connected to people, and capable of moving onlookers deeply. In many ways, experiences like this contributed to my later pull toward creating large-scale mural work that offers something meaningful to others in return.

At that point, it had not occurred to me that I would pursue a career in art. In response to the urging of a professor, I added the Studio Art minor to round out my Communication Arts degree, my concentration in Visual Communications, and my minor in Information Technology Systems (ITS). He confided that he had watched me blossom in his classes, and he was right. The studio art experiences I had there made me feel deeply alive, and my study abroad experience expanded my sense of what art could be. The addition of the Studio Art minor was not an intentional career move; it was meant to appease my own inner artist.

Still, I continued pursuing studio art with the belief that strengthening my understanding and skills in all things creative would lend themselves to better web and digital design. I came to better understand how to compose a scene, how to combine mixed media and traditional art practices before turning to digital tools to finalize a piece. I learned multimodal, multilayered, multimedia approaches to creating art. When I returned to the U.S., I had a vastly diverse senior portfolio that reflected a wide range of my artistic acumen and revealed me more fully to myself as a visual artist — not to mention an impressive display during the Senior Exhibit at the campus gallery during my last semester.

After college, I fell back into the belief that a corporate 9-to-5 job with a paycheck and benefits was the safe route and became a graphic designer. During the two years I still lived in Massachusetts before moving to North Carolina, I began going to sip-and-paints with family and friends. They were fun social outings that renewed my connection to acrylic painting, something I had explored in high school, college, and university abroad. My response to those experiences were positive and memorable, thanks more to who I was painting than what I was painting. That feeling stayed with me, so when I moved south and was later injured, it felt natural to turn to painting as a form of art therapy while I convalesced. Little did I know, that injury would become a catalyst.

Art remained part of me, but it was not yet the whole path. That fuller shift came later, when recovery, painting, and the response to the work I began sharing made me realize that with the right learning, practice, and practical skills, I could become a professional artist after all.

The Back Story