How I Discovered My Artistic Voice

I have been making and creating, this and that my entire life. When I was little, my parents didn’t punish me by hiding the remote, or sending me to my room. All they had to do was take away my art supplies and I was devastated!

So the motivation behind why I love to create, never came up. It's just always been an innate part of who I am.

However, as I’ve begun to turn this creative energy into a business, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking and really pinpoint why I make the what I make.

This meant journaling, reflecting, brainstorming, and honestly, soul searching. For a long time, it felt like there couldn’t possibly being an underlying theme connecting all of my artwork. But then, it hit me. Every time I created something new, the true meaning behind it was balance.

Sometimes that meant I was struggling with my feminine, girly side, and my masculine, tomboy side. Other times it meant finding a balance between being the role model school teacher, and the free spirited artist. In college, I was often challenged with being both an athlete and an art major, (the two rarely seemed to go hand in hand).

Once I noticed this theme, I realized even my more superficial artwork carried a similar theme. The landscapes I was painting showed soft, feminine skies, with rough, masculine land beneath. When I started paying closer attention, all of nature thrives on this balance. Night and day; winter & summer; land and sea.

I couldn’t ignore it anymore and I realized the motivation behind all of my artwork was simple; to show the balance found in people and nature.
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I think the people who know me best would say this is a perfect sentiment to who I am, too. I’ve never been very much of one “type” of person, but rather a swirling cocktail of this personality type and that. For me, it’s often been frustrating to not fit in any of the boxes I saw offered by society. But as I get older, and learn to appreciate the beautiful opportunity this offers me, I’ve come to appreciate it and embrace it.