It began in crayons, like all children. I loved to draw, to paint, be immersed in color.
Art class was a close second to drama club.
I grew up and acting became my deepest love, but I never let go of that painting crush.
I took watercolor classes in NYC in between television shows.
I made my own Christmas cards and secret books of maybes.
The faces came the first time in Uganda. Leaving acting left a huge void to fill and that old flame got sparked.
I met an amazing artist in Kampala who took me on as a student. Week after week I would go into his studio and learn and paint and draw. I would take my homework and spread it out all over the floor so that my 2 year old had paint on her feet, paint that would move into her soul.
I painted and painted and painted and it was faces and bodies and joy.
But my life kept moving and I was a new mother. Time got fuller and we moved to Rome where my paints and pencils got buried in boxes, and forgotten.
The pandemic has been horrible. It is horrible. But it has allowed us to slow down, to hibernate and reach back into what matters and what we most love.
For my daughter, that has always been to paint.
Settled onto our mountainside I watched her, with her crazy talent. She was and is my inspiration in everything and stuck in our house while the world spun crazy I reached for and opened my own old boxes. I wanted to paint with her again.
My boxes that started in NY, went to Uganda, Rome, Kenya, all the way to the Pacific Northwest. Boxes that began in a single life and found themselves within a full family life.
Boxes full of a dream that waited for its time.