The following quotations have been pulled from an hour-long studio visit with the artist, with minor edits made for brevity.
ON THE HOME STUDIO:
Growing up, I was always uncomfortable in my house. So when I got older, I really wanted to feel like the things around me mirrored me.
During Covid, I was in the apartment alone, and I was going through all of these emotional shockwaves. I really wanted to make things that were beautiful to me visually, because it was the only anchor that I felt like I had at the time.
So making art in my house is really important to me. I tried to be in a separate studio space, but I think because the artworks really are for me, they kind of have to physically be here with me. When I had a studio, I had a different level of anxiety, and I couldn’t see the work evolve.
A lot of what I do is here in the kitchen. I haven’t seen the surface of my kitchen table in forever!
The beauty of having it in my house is that I can let experiments be experiments. Walking past my pieces throughout the day, and spending time with them has been key.
Being in a home studio creates a humbleness.
ON MAKING AND HEALING:
Fantasizing was a really big thing for me, and my fantasies began to haunt me and I couldn’t turn them off. My fantasies became a coping mechanism to the point where I wanted to escape my own life.
Creating art has been my journey towards transforming my imagination from becoming an addiction that was wrecking my life, into something that brings me into a whole new arena of empowerment.
ON BEAUTY AND STYLE:
Making the paintings beautiful and being able to make something that I look at and I like would soothe me when I was spinning out. I could say: wait. I made this, it's there, I am a real person and I like myself.
I pick colors that remind me of being a child, nurtured, held, things that remind me of being younger with friends, and playfulness.
I love fashion, I love style, and discovering my style and having that style be cohesive and not fragmented is a real sign of wholeness and healing for me.
I think I am making objects of faith. Faith in what? I guess faith in my own beauty. I might feel really bad today, and the life that I live today doesn’t reflect the person I know I can be, but the paintings were first. The paintings were more beautiful than I felt. And that helped me to get to my own beauty. They were markers of my own beauty. And I think that's a really cool thing.