Welcome, and a Little About Me
Welcome, and thanks for being here!
I thought I’d use my first blog post to tell you a little about myself.
I grew up in St. Louis, MO and came to Indiana for college. I attended Herron School of Art and Design and graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art Education. I taught Middle School Art for a year before I became bedridden for a decade due to multiple health issues. I continued to make art whenever I could, but there were many days, early on, where I couldn’t even hold a pencil or a paintbrush. My art making was sporadic at best, but I still had the urge to create. I had to think outside the box and adapt so that I could still express myself.
As I saw multiple specialists and physical therapists to manage my conditions, I began to improve incredibly slowly and incrementally. I still don’t function as well as my peers, but that doesn’t keep me from trying. I always joke that I’m a Type A person in a Type B body. On days where I’m feeling okay, I tend to overdo it to make up for the days where I’m not feeling so great. This can cause quite a crash and burn cycle. I have to be extremely careful and be able to not only know my own limits and boundaries, but to be able to communicate them to others, so that I can care for myself properly. It has all been a process of learning through trial and error and it is something I constantly have to monitor and work on every day.
In 2020, I began making art every day. This was before the pandemic started. I’m not actually quite sure why or how it started, it just did! I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I do believe in making the right changes in your life when you are ready. When the pandemic hit, I was already 3 months into my daily art making, which served me well, as art has always been somewhat therapeutic for me. Now, it felt like a lifeline. I was posting my art on social media nearly every day; it felt like it was my way to communicate with the rest of the world, who had now come to know, intimately, just how life can come to a screeching halt (as mine had many years prior).
Later that year, I had an abdominal surgery that went horribly wrong. I ended up with sepsis and needed a larger, major surgery, multiple IV antibiotics, and a long hospital stay to survive. I did not come out of this experience unscathed. I had been managing the healthcare system for years before this, but navigating it and advocating for myself during a pandemic while my initial surgeon was (at the very least) neglectful was a whole different story. I ended up with Medical PTSD from the events that unfolded. As soon as I was cleared, I began to slowly walk again. And as soon as I could sit up unassisted for a few minutes, I grabbed a paintbrush and an old set of portable watercolors. Those two things helped me to move forward and move past the medical mistakes and trauma. It is an ongoing process.
I am still walking and making art nearly every day. These things are so healing to me and it is a bonus that people have resonated with my art. Some of my doctors were my first collectors when they saw what I was doing. Soon friends and family followed suit, and when I began getting interest and inquiries from strangers, it was an amazing feeling. I feel so lucky and fortunate that I have survived multiple health conditions and surgeries, and I don’t plan on wasting this life. I’m so glad you’re here to follow along. Thank you!