A giant empty cardboard box sat in the middle of our apartment in Queens. This box could fit my whole six-year-old little self in it. I flipped it over and decided to do something with it. I got my art supplies, climbed in, and began covering every inch. I drew on it, painted it, and when it was fully covered with my designs, proudly signed my name to it. Then I hung a blanket over the edge to make a door. While I was in this little fortress, everything else faded into the background. I loved that box for the week or so I had it before it was gone. I wasn't just playing and being creative; I was building and decorating my own space that gave me a sense of security.
In my hand-painted box house, I felt empowered, probably because I spent so much time as a kid feeling the ground shifting under my feet. My dad, who has passed on to the other side, unfortunately, struggled with various addictions that made our home unstable. My upbringing involved a lot of highs and lows, chaos, unpredictability, and walking on eggshells. In retrospect, I spent a significant portion of my childhood trying to outrun what I couldn’t control. Art always made me feel happier. I craved to draw, paint, and build things because, in retrospect, I was turning inward to a place where I felt safe. I had no words to express it then, but art had an ability to shed light into the darkness around me.
I carried a longing for wholeness into my teen years. Growing up around dysfunction shaped the way I saw myself and the world. My life increasingly became externally focused. I wanted to rebel, escape, and fill the inner emptiness. I developed a pattern of chasing the wrong things, hoping they would make me feel right. Drawn toward superficial dead-end roads to soothe my discomfort, I lacked awareness of what was driving my choices. My life just often felt sad, disconnected, wild and messy.
Art never left me, though I was running from myself at full speed. Painting remained a companion, something I regularly turned to to express and calm my emotions. It brought me a sense of relief in a world where I struggled to find a voice, identity, and a sense of purpose. I remember in high school, my AP art teacher, Charlie, whom I loved, would tell me, “You have a natural gift, kid. You need to do something with it.” I could barely hear him over the noise in my head. I loved art and the feeling it gave me, but I was wandering in a maze with no direction. Nothing at that time was likely to truly save me. You can’t change what you can’t see. I didn’t even know I was lost.
I continued making art beyond my high school and college years, but my pattern of running from myself while expecting to feel whole continued. While I had always dreamt of selling a piece of my art one day, I was too consumed with finding happiness outside myself to pursue art full time. After much heartache, pain, and disillusionment I think I got to a place where I just couldn’t deny it anymore, I wasn’t happy. I didn’t want to live my life looking for the next person, place or thing to make me whole and so, I sought help. I received a lot of support do the work it takes to experience an inner transformation. It didn’t happen alone and it didn’t happen overnight.
Facing what I had spent years trying to avoid, numb, or fill externally, was a long and uncomfortable process. It slowly gave me a new appreciation for life and for my art, and what it had nudged me toward all along: going deeper within for the answers instead of searching for them outside myself. Getting sober drastically helped me change the way I understood myself and my past. The process was challenging and far from linear, but it was freeing. Changing requires rigorous honesty, humility, self-awareness, and a willingness to rebuild from the inside out. Finding a new way of living allowed me to start creating and selling my art from a totally different mindset. I believe once I became conscious of my purpose beyond escape and survival, I finally began to evolve with intention as an artist.
Having children was another profound, life-changing experience that made me think deeply about the kind of life I wanted to live and mother I wanted to be for my kids. I wanted my children to grow up different from the way I did, and I felt driven to grow beyond what I had seen and replicated in my own life. I am extremely close with my kids, and the most meaningful parts of my life are the ones I share with my daughter and my son. They truly inspire me to be a better person. Whether we are riding bikes along the boardwalk in Long Beach or traveling together, our family motto is to appreciate life while we are here and to focus on the things that give life true meaning.
Art has been with me through every stage of my life. Looking back now, I think so much of my art has been tied to the search for spiritual meaning and to understanding who I am beneath the surface, beyond the distractions of the world. The belief that external things alone cannot fully satisfy the soul or bring lasting peace lives is what now lives in my work. It almost feels as though my art was trying to guide me toward that lesson long before I could fully articulate it myself.
I believe life is sacred and temporary. I want to spend my time here loving, evolving and experiencing the world as the best version of myself. I want to continue making art from a place that feels authentic and connected to who I truly am and what I value. For me, fulfillment comes through spiritual connection and living in alignment with something greater than myself. My art is an extension of that knowing. I think that is what I have been searching for all along.