Begin Again

These paintings are an exploration after putting my practice on hold for over a decade to focus on emotional support for aging parents. Emotional tending, later combined with relocation, COVID-19, loss of close friends and parents, and personal physical challenges have created unfamiliar territory. In 2023, when I could reaccess a studio and return to my art, I was filled with grief and questions.

Sitting with all the changes that life has brought during my hiatus from painting, I'm not the same person as before. With that, is also the practicality of reintroducing myself to painting and having a space where I can again make a mess. I spent the first few days paralyzed, afraid to put brush to canvas. What if my best days were behind me? What if I've forgotten how to mix color? What if I can no longer remember how to paint? What if people hate what I do? What if I have nothing left to say? How do I recapture my practice? Who am I as an artist? How can I find freedom as I work my way through the tangled veil of immense loss?

I return to still life whenever I'm stuck with subject matter. In that, I can focus on relationships, light, and color. This series is a beginning; a reclaiming of the artist within.