New Life
I come from women who knew how to carry what needed carrying. My mother, her mother, and the women before them taught me that language well. This work wonders what happens when I inherit something else too: color, pleasure, presence, softness, and the freedom to make a life that does not begin with burden.
My art arrived there before I did.
Black
Embod(y)
Meant
In spiritual direction, I sat with the word Holy. I dipped my finger into Black paint and began writing while thinking about what I want to center my life around: love. The Y is intentional. It represents the questions I carry about the boundaries of my love: where it goes, who receives it, how much of it I give away, and whether I am willing to extend that same love toward myself.
My fingerprint appears almost like feet walking toward that love, reminding me that God has been present throughout my life, long before I became a pastor. The handwritten markings hold another truth that my story is worth documenting.
The Life Before Me
I took this photo of my nephew on my phone, but the moment never felt small to me. After witnessing my sister bring him into the world, I began thinking differently about new life, not only as birth, but as presence, wonder, and the gift of watching a life unfold before me.
Placed Here
A card from four girls at a youth camp became a reminder that presence matters. I recently found it tucked inside my Bible and reimagined it through color, memory, and light. Placed Here reflects the quiet ways God uses our presence, even in spaces where we feel out of place.
Living Roots
Created in March 2016, Living Roots began as a canvas layered with dying roses, leaves, pearls, blue pigment, and fragments of Genesis. Three triangular sections gesture toward the Trinity, while the pearls, water, sky, and organic materials speak to what continues forming beneath the surface. I recently recreated the piece digitally against white brick, allowing me to see it with new eyes. What once felt rooted in endurance now feels like a meditation on growth, renewal, and the ways life keeps unfolding.
Circled Truths
Originally created in my artist journal with pastels and permanent marker, Circled Truths became a way of naming where I am without rushing past it. The red holds what has weighed on me, while the green holds what I am choosing to notice and make room for: rest, hope, feeling, and simply being.
The Life I Inhabit
A self portrait taken on my phone in downtown Chicago during a discernment trip to Canada, wearing one of my favorite shirts: We Belong Here. Earlier that day, I had spent thirty minutes on the floor searching for the only contact lens I could see through after eye surgery. Somehow, this photograph holds what came after: no clock, no rushing, just the unexpected joy of looking at myself and thinking, wow, look at you.