In a world that often pushes artists to focus on productivity or perfection, the STORIES framework offers a different path. This isn't just about making "better" art or building a more successful creative business. It's about liberation - both personal and collective.

Sentipensante is about putting ourselves back together. It's recognizing that our emotions inform our thoughts, and our thoughts shape our emotions. It's understanding that the most profound truths often come from a place where feeling and thinking intertwine. Sentipensante in Spiritual Archaeology is about putting myself back together through my artistic practice.

I'm going to walk you through this archaeological dig of the mind. We'll explore how a children's book series and the soundtrack of my youth combined to create something entirely new. Buckle up, art adventurers – we're about to get weird, nostalgic, and maybe a little paint-splattered. Ready to start digging?

The edge effect reminds us that borders aren't just lines of separation - they're zones of possibility. In art, as in nature, these in-between spaces can be where the most interesting and innovative things happen.

My last two series — Ophelia in 2023, and now the Tempest-inspired series in 2024—have started as one thing and evolved roughly halfway through the process: the pain that initiated the project alchemized into something almost triumphant. I paint to give voice to the versions of me who need to get on to the canvas. But I am not her. At the same time, She survived so I can be here today.

And that is the story of my art— everything I used to push away, the parts I thought were too broken or too messy? When I share them with you, we can see them in a different way. We can hold multiple truths, witness them with love, strengthen our connections.

Each of these collections combined my own history, my own interests, and my own idiosyncrasies at the heart of the work. The heart and the soul and the guts of the work are what make the Work work. I had to know what I liked in order to include it in my artwork. The excavating meaning — the Spiritual Archaeology, the inner work — starts with that kernel self-knowledge. It starts with showing up, with a desire to know and be known, even — especially — in the face of the unknown, blank canvas.

It is no wonder that my visual art style relies so heavily on making associations among multiple influences. When I talk about my process — Spiritual Archaeology, for the new folks around here — I refer to this as synchronicity. If you’ve heard me get excited about it, you may have heard me talk about “pings.”

So what does it look like to be a process-driven artist? Well, in my case, it looks a little like chaos, a lot like ADHD, and a medium amount of me listening to the same songs over and over while I look at half-finished paintings. And sometimes it looks like me sitting at a computer in a grain inspection building and suddenly grabbing my pen to excitedly scribble down the perfect idea.