24”x24” oil on wood panel
This painting encapsulates what midwesterners have always known…
there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.
The world may feel very stormy right now, but we’re not afraid of a little rain.
24×24” oil on wood panel
This painting captures several truths…or what I’ve come to know as truths.
Joy and revelry is important despite the weather conditions.
The place where light and shadow meet is perhaps the most beautiful place to dance.
24”x24” oil on wood panel
This painting is centered on contrasts--
light/shadow,
rough/ soft,
dull/bright.
It is intended to be a reminder that there is so much beauty in paradox...
Particularly if a tutu is involved.
16×20 Oil on Wood Panel, 2025
As the piece came together, it distinctly shifted from a painting exercise to something much more meaningful. Something that felt like medicine. Like an honoring. Like validation of the immense power within us. It felt like hope…the version that is often forged only in supremely difficult times.
A quote has been circulating recently that sums it up perfectly.
"People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spiders' webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles and the grit of cobblestone in her hair. And she just spat out a tooth as she got back up and went for another go".
The wayfinders collection
The Wayfinders Collection is a series of narrative paintings that explore the sacred, often quiet wisdom that arises when we reconnect with the wild — both around us and within. In each piece, human figures share space with animals, and elemental landscapes. Brush strokes, line, pattern, and the interplay between light and shadow are used to capture a distinct energy in each composition.
The subjects of these paintings are mostly children because they inherently represent the inner wild we are all called to reconnect with and tend to. Children don’t need to be reminded to be embodied, to be creative, to dance, to play— they do all of this naturally. The children in my paintings are meant to remind us of the innate wildness within each of us that is in fact our own inner Wayfinder.
Now more than ever, these paintings are invitations to remember how to move through uncertainty with courage, tenderness, joy, and a sense of sacred connection. Our current world is stormy and intense and so very difficult to witness at times. We don’t have a map telling us exactly how to find our way through this, but yet, we persevere. Not by hiding away or bypassing but by remembering that we can still dance while the wind rages, there are tutus and pudgy baby hands, and we have raincoats.
We may not have a map, but as long as we stay the course towards each other and towards joy, we will find our way.
New Wayfinders recently added, aug. 2025
60”x34” oil on canvas.
The sweater my daughter is wearing in this painting was knit by my grandmother for me when I was a child. Generations of babies in our family have worn her sweaters over the years.
She was also a painter. I learned how to oil paint because of her. The easel I paint on was hers.
This painting is meant to honor and acknowledge the lasting familial patterns cast before us and how they can paradoxically offer a safety net at times and an obstacle at others. Some, a comforting embrace. Others, a snare we must free ourselves from.