where it began

My Snapshots show started with a surprise Christmas present from my husband in 2022. He bought us two tickets to Paris for March of the following year. In 2023, I crossed a lifelong dream off my bucket list and finally got to go to Europe for the first time. I fell in love with London and Paris, just as I imagined I would, and came home with thousands of photos and a head full of inspiration. Thanks to my brother’s wedding, I also went to New York City later that same year (this time with the whole family) and again came home full of photos and inspiration. I loved comparing three of the biggest cities in the world and pulling out details I loved about each of them. I wanted to paint paintings the way they feel in my sketchbooks when I’m on a trip—full of lines and quick marks. I wanted them to feel the way a trip feels in your memory, where some things stand out really clearly, full of color, and other things fade away, just rough background lines. I had so much fun bringing these paintings to life, playing with style and pushing my own boundaries. I thought of how often each of these cities has reinvented themselves, how they’ve rebranded and rebuilt their own identities over decades (centuries) of existing among different human histories. Who says they ever had only one story to tell? One style? One small creative box they had to fit into? Who says I have one box? Who says I have creative limits? Who says I can’t continually reinvent and rebuild myself wherever my inspiration takes me? I feel like I’ve only begun to play with ideas I gathered on the treasure hunt of these travels and I can’t wait to continue to find more as I keep exploring. #snapshotsshow