a tug in my heart

I dedicated a lot of time and energy to creating art throughout my life. I drew the musicians I loved. I painted the feelings I felt. I preferred pencils, crayons and watercolors, just the basics.

I am eternally grateful to those mentors in my life that encouraged me and repeatedly and consistently put pencils, crayons, markers and paintbrushes in my hands, those who put blank paper down in front of me. I thank them for teaching me how valuable art is to our lives.

I am also aware of what a privilege it was to be raised in an environment that valued art and creative expression. For that reason, when it comes to the materials that I use to create my watercolor art, I intentionally keep it simple and affordable. I use only one paintbrush and the most basic watercolor paints that I can find. I believe that creating art should be accessible to everybody, not only to those who can afford the highest quality materials.


Once I became more aware of social justice issues and became more socially active in my local community, I spent less time with my pencils and paintbrushes and started to prioritize educating myself and participating in protests over drawing and painting.

I joined anti-war, anti-militarization, anti-imperialist, environmental justice, feminist, labor and LGBTQIA± social justice movements in the places I lived and studied. I also dedicated my time to studying communication theory and practice, social movements and nonviolence.

Able to look back now at both times in my life, I can see the ways that my art once lacked a social awareness and the ways my social activism once lacked creativity and artistic expression.

I felt a tug in my heart to pick the paintbrush back up and to make art a priority in my life again.

I now integrate my art into my social activism and integrate what I studied in communication, social justice and nonviolence into art for social change.

themes in my work

In my art, I explore experiences of marginalization and work for social justice, love in action and solidarity. I also explore processes of healing, growth and transformation, both personal and communal.

Like many, I believe in the power of art to challenge us, transform us, heal us and hold us.

My intention is to focus on the most marginalized parts of our emotional and physical selves as well as center the experiences of those people most marginalized in our communities in my artwork.

influences in my work

I believe it is important to be transparent about aspects of my life experience that consciously and unconsciously affect my creative process as an artist.

​I am certainly limited in my perspective and am necessarily engaging my own process of continued learning and growth.

I identify as a white able-bodied bisexual cis-woman who was raised primarily in white Catholic communities in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in the United States. I was raised Catholic and was formed within the privileges of private Catholic schools and university.

In 2013, at the age of 23, I moved my life to Cochabamba, Bolivia, South America, where I eventually met my life partner. We have since decided to form a family and grow our lives together in my partner's home state in Bolivia. I now create art and maintain my small art business from our home in a rural area outside of the city of Cochabamba.

Living in another culture has meant becoming bilingual in English and Spanish, which is now reflected in my art.

I have been influenced and transformed by the experience of being raised within an individualistic, Western imperialist, white supremacist capitalist culture in the United States and living, since 2013, in a culture that is radically communal and rooted in the wisdom and resilience of indigenous peoples and practices in Bolivia.

Living and learning in the complexity of the stark contrast between these two cultures has continually challenged me to grow and my intention is to reflect that process of growth in my work.

I am accountable both to the communities I maintain contact with in the United States and to our extended community where my partner and I live in Bolivia. I am grateful for the ways that these relationships in real time hold space for me to learn and grow and create as an artist.