2/21 My body gets excited with scale every time. Even the process of ripping a huge roll of canvas and layering it with gesso — it's long physical work. It takes time to stretch them and prepare them before any color even begins and I love it.
The fear is something else. It was being in a new environment, with new people, trying to blend in after the comforts of home. It's the quiet question of — what if I'm here and my creative doesn't align? What if the client really only likes a certain set of colors, and I can't deliver? I have to shed all of that — the unfamiliarity, the pressure, the self-doubt — just to get to my magic. And the magic doesn't come on command it really asks for space first. How do I give it space with the pressure I feel?
Others may expect me to go somewhere and paint many paintings, and I'm not like that and never have been. I have maybe six paintings on hand at any given time. A lot of pieces get created as bigger projects for other people's homes, so I'm searching through their eyes and blending it with mine. That's part of the work — holding many visions at once.
To get to this point, I did lots of resting and work in the shop preparing it before I came. I was appointed a big print job in Boston that was due just a couple of days before I left. It felt like a lot just to get here, the physical, the logistical, and the emotional. Now i’m here unfurling and resting in this new place.
2/26 ~ 5 days of painting, it flew by. Truly, it’s like I blinked and now three paintings are in front of me. So that tells me I can trust myself. Things come out naturally, and I have to trust that first, without the voices of clients in my head. The reason people like my work is what comes out naturally. The harder work is remembering those layers and trying to conjure that magic when it needs to come.
2/27/26 solitude solitude solitude
processing a lot of thoughts today… I happen to have long conversations with both of my parents during my time here. It had been months since i’ve talked with either of them. I grew up watching my dad do what I do all day: pacing from one project to the next, sometimes for no one other than himself. Very talented, the kind of person who can make anything with his hands. Life hasn't always made room for those gifts, and watching someone you love circle back to the starting line over and over is difficult…My mother is the quiet force. A reader, a writer, a healer — but she keeps those things pretty close. She has so much to offer and I think she's still figuring out how to let herself offer it.
I am making friends with this feeling of guilt that creeps in when things are going just as I planned. Some part me is waiting for permission to enjoy what I’ve built. So I’m here :) I’m reminded, through some windows in these conversations why I work hard to live out my dreams (which I think are coming true?!). I can stand on someone's hilltop in California and make the work and not apologize for it because what is the alternative? letting the fear win, letting the gifts go quiet ? The gallery, the clients, the friends and community who literally hold me up — we all know it wasn’t just handed over. it takes an enormous amount for artists and small business to survive in these times.
Normally, when I’m visiting the west coast, I'm on the move — seeing friends, tagging along on adventures that they plan, visiting family. This time, I've barely left this one hilltop. And I've realized that when it comes to my own adventure, I don't need to move at all. I need quiet and stillness and cups of coffee, tea and silence. The painting asks for that, and so do I, apparently.