I don’t know how to live a life without art and creativity. It has been my closest companion since childhood. It is how I am present, process this world, and say what I can’t say with words. It has given me a life full of creativity of course but also travel, adventure, storytelling and community.

Inspiration comes from travel and nature. I love everything about being in a new place/or an old favorite place and watching, sketching, documenting, and storytelling with marks.

I also find so much inspiration in books and nothing makes me want to run home faster and get out my paints like an art museum or gallery show.

In my art I am pushing myself and trying new things. I am taking what works and finding how to give it roots. It is when I am completely quiet. When I work I may keep coming back to a piece over a long period of time. There is a slowness a lot of time to my work. Some pieces come quickly with intention and other times it takes longer with intention.

When I am teaching my heart is to give the artists gathered real tools and techniques that students can use in their day to day. I take time to hopefully change mindsets that may be holding them back from living the creative life I know they so deeply desire.

I love creating sketchbooks with my students and then watching them fill them up with their own marks, palettes, compositions and lines. It is a faster pace of seeing, gathering inspiration and putting it down.

The teaching process is more similar to my own daily creative practices to stay connected and to also create quick studios for finished work. To have artists leave a retreat with an idea of what to do next in their creative life is really fulfilling.

It gives you the freedom to capture without perfection. You are more likely to feel, remember, and know you were really present at that moment when you create quickly while traveling. My thumbnail sketches, quick watercolor washes and works with graphite and charcoal have been a lifeline to new works and keeping my own creative practiced honed. There is so much creative freedom in creating while traveling.

I think many attend the courses and workshops because I have long standing relationships with them. We have all grown up together in a way and found our way creatively. We have hosted them at workshops at our own home and studio and that connects people in really special ways. I have also been creating online art courses for many years and this has allowed me to connect with women from all over the world.

I also think artists come because they know I will sit and talk with them, eat with them, listen. At the end of workshop we know each other a little bit better. That always feels really special to me. I also think the style of my workshops invites play and experimenting. That instantly puts people at ease. We have a lot of fun at workshops, and the artists also leave with their own work. Isn’t that what it is all about?

When I create while I travel, I feel the most like me. I am really aware of my own ebb and flow and the rhythm I am creating to live the life I want. When I travel, I am rarely working on large or complex pieces. Rather, its more often small studies that later influence my studio work. It always feels like a very exciting time of gathering inspiration, ideas, compositions, palettes and marks.

I am also given the permission to create quickly something that back in the studio I would think needs more time. The limit of time (ferry coming, you are on a bike ride, etc. ) is a huge gift. When you are constantly out and about, seeing nature or architecture, etc., you have a choice to quickly capture or not capture at all. I highly recommend you capture!