At age three, my mom discovered me carefully pouring several bottles of my aunt’s colorful nail polish into a dish, just to see the colors swirl. I have been hooked on experimenting with color ever since. I devoured every opportunity to learn new mediums from summer enrichment programs in ceramics, photography, and watercolor to creating a self-guided art class in high school. Studying art in college was a no-brainer for me.

Photography

My first camera was a point and shoot, 110 film camera when I was 7 or 8 years old. I searched the house taking pictures, using up the film roll in a matter of minutes. I was hooked. During middle school, I took a black and white film class one summer. My dad let me borrow his old SLR and it is still one of my favorite cameras over 20 years later. In college, I finally trained in a darkroom and my love for photography only grew deeper. The richness and beauty of film will always be close to my heart. I received my first digital SLR before my undergraduate college trip to Lithuania a couple years later. My host professor introduced me to the world of digital photography and alternative printing processes. Photography captures joy, emotion, and raw beauty.

Painting

The paintbrush is an extension of my hand. I’ve always loved colors, how they interact and how they mix. I really connect with abstract art. I’m most drawn to modern art, specifically action painters, color field and abstract expressionists. I enjoy water colors and oil paint but I work mostly in acrylic paints, I enjoy to flexible nature of acrylic paints.

Ceramics

I had my first experience with ceramics in elementary school, The only limit to what I created with clay was my imagination. I grabbed every opportunity to work with clay. I took a throwing class in college and fell madly in love. Working on the pottery wheel is very rhythmic and centering…pun intended. Playing with underglazes and different glazing techniques is a satisfying way to combine my love for painting and ceramics. Ceramics offers the opportunity to experiment with texture, pattern, and color.

I work very intuitively in each medium. I often joke that the canvas or the clay tells me what it wants to be. I love exploring and evoking emotion in my pieces. After college I realized that my work was often guided by my faith. I pursued an advanced degree at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, diving deeper into theology and history to inform my artwork. The search for simple beauty and calm imbues my creations.