“Evening Watch”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

This painting captures a peaceful moment I witnessed at Red Mountain Park in Mesa, Arizona, a place I used to walk regularly when I lived nearby. I was out doing laps at the park when I caught this scene just as the sun was setting and the lights around the lake started to glow. Something about it stopped me…the calmness of the water, the softness of the sky, the quiet silhouettes along the path.

What made it even more memorable was seeing a police officer chatting with local residents, just connecting as part of the community. It was a simple moment, but it struck me as warm, human, and meaningful.

I wanted to capture not just the visual beauty of the sunset, but the feeling of peace and the way evening light can soften everything, even the pace of life itself. This piece is a tribute to that kind of stillness, and to the everyday interactions that quietly shape our sense of home.

“Dear Jenny”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

This painting is a love letter to my sister. It honors her, and it honors our connection. It celebrates an incredible soul who has shown up for me time and time again.

It’s based on a moment I’ll never forget, one of many where I was going through something, and she was right there beside me. Consoling me. She leaned in, calm and present, holding space in that quiet, steady way she always does.

I didn’t want to just capture a memory, I wanted to create a tribute. To her gentleness, her strength, and the kind of love that doesn’t need words. The composition centers on our shared moment, while the background blurs into a soft wash of water and light, like the rest of the world had fallen away.

There’s a kind of love that holds you together when you’re falling apart. This painting is about that. It’s about her. It’s my way of acknowledging how often she’s been there for me, and thanking her for her love.

“Self Portrait in Pieces”

Oil on canvas, 24”x36”

This painting is built from pieces. Photos of past drawings, fragments of earlier paintings, a strange doodled face I once made, and circles cut from old artwork. At the time, I was floating, emotionally untethered, grasping at art to ground me. I lived alone and painted constantly. In an effort to find something solid, I began creating collages from my older work, stitching together scraps of my artistic past into something entirely new. This painting emerged from one of those collages.

The cartoonish figure at the center is a distorted self-portrait — playful, strange, and fragmented. My sister’s face appears in the upper right corner, almost laughing at me and at the absurdity of life and the state I was in. During that chaotic time, she was my anchor, the quiet, steady presence who helped me feel less alone. Her image is both surreal and very real, a reminder of the love that helped me hold it together.

This piece is messy, funny, intimate, disjointed, and deeply personal. It’s not polished or pristine. It’s a visual diary entry, a record of a moment when I felt lost and was reaching backward and inward, trying to create my way into something more solid.

“The Kiss”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

That magnetic pause. When you’re so close to someone you can feel their breath, but nothing has happened yet… and everything is about to. There’s both nervousness and confidence, hesitation and surrender. It’s one of those rare, unforgettable moments where time slows down.

This painting captures the charged stillness in the breath before a kiss, especially a first kiss. The world narrows to a point, and nothing exists except proximity, tension, and anticipation. I wanted to freeze that feeling: the ache of wanting, the hope of being wanted back, the electricity humming just beneath the skin.

Using a limited monochromatic palette, I stripped away everything but emotion. No distractions, just light, shadow, and feeling. The close-up composition draws the viewer in, like they’ve stumbled upon something private, delicate, and fleeting.

The brushwork is fluid and soft, especially around the lips and noses, lending a sense of skin and breath. There’s a quiet contrast between precision and suggestion - some areas are sharply defined, while others dissolve into abstraction, adding to the intimacy and mystery.

This painting invites the viewer to feel that suspended, fragile space where love, attraction, and uncertainty coexist. It speaks to yearning, vulnerability, and the power of what’s left unsaid.

“Aftershock”

Oil on canvas, 14”x14”

This painting began one way and ended another. It carries a powerful contrast - not just in style, but in tone, emotion, and timing.

The vibrant patterned background was created before a personal tragedy took place. At the time, I had no specific destination in mind. I was simply exploring rhythm and color through shape and pattern. The pinks, purples, reds, and oranges felt joyful, decorative, almost celebratory.

After the tragedy, I returned to the canvas in shock. I added the black-and-white figure as a form of art therapy. The figure is sparse, raw, and emotionally exposed. The tears are simple but heavy. Boxed into the center of the painting, drained of all color and pattern, it creates a stark rupture. A moment when everything stops. A visual silence surrounded by noise. Numbness.

Together, the two sections now live as one. The painting became a record of my joy and grief. The tension between styles, that fracture in the surface, is what gives the painting its emotional weight. A bright life, broken. A moment that divided everything into before and after.

“The Beach Party”

Oil on canvas, 24”x48”

This painting is a surreal reflection of a night on the beach — a party scene that plays out somewhere between memory, imagination, and emotional truth. By emotional truth, I mean that the painting may not represent a literal or factual moment, but it captures how the night felt. The memories might be blurred, distorted, or imagined, but the feelings are real: the mood, the confusion, the highs, and the haunting beauty of it.

Inspired by my time living on Kauai, the setting takes place by the ocean, under a full moon. But this isn’t just a landscape. It’s a psychological space.

The figures are fragmented and symbolic. Some are guests. Some are me. The shadow figure in the bottom left, the face with big pink lips, and the ghostlike woman in the upper right all represent different versions of myself at different points in the night: present, removed, remembered, or watching from the outside. The mood is both celebratory and distorted as the energy of the party deepens into something dreamlike or maybe haunted.

Smoke, music, moonlight, and movement blend together. Everything starts to bend. Like many nights we try to forget or wish we could relive, this painting doesn’t aim for clarity. It leans into the beautiful confusion of it all.

“Organized Chaos”

Oil on canvas, 30”x40”

This painting feels alive, full of rhythm, motion, and energy. It evokes a sense of organized chaos, like music you can’t help but move to. There’s a playful tension between the bright, graphic shapes and the deep black background that pulls the viewer in and spins them around. It feels like joy mixed with mystery, almost like stepping into a dream or memory that’s been abstracted.

I didn’t set out with a fixed image in mind. Instead, I let intuition guide the shapes, allowing the painting to evolve like a song; each mark responded to the last, each color acted as a note in a melody. The forms shift between the recognizable and the imagined: masks, profiles, symbols, and constellations all seem to flicker into view, then vanish. That ambiguity is part of the language.

Ultimately, this painting is about movement…emotional, visual, and internal. It invites the viewer to dance with it, to lean in, to get lost for a moment in the music between the shapes.

“Amethyst”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

Like the gemstone it’s named after, Amethyst invites both contemplation and complexity. Layers of violet, lavender, and plum weave through black line-work in a pattern that feels both methodical and instinctual, as if following a rhythm only the subconscious knows.

This painting is not meant to be decoded, but felt. The design shifts as you look at it: floral in one glance, architectural the next. It’s a tangle of movement and repetition, of small decisions accumulating into something unexpectedly whole.

While the palette grounds it in calm, the shapes dance with tension, a quiet energy held in balance. Amethyst offers no obvious focal point, instead encouraging the eye to roam, to wander, to find its own way through.

“The Painted Rose”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

The Painted Rose is as much about gesture and movement as it is about subject. The palette is limited but rich, with crimson, ivory, and golden tones that swirl together like a quiet storm, creating both harmony and tension. The splotches of red and the soft veils of gold don’t just describe a flower; they celebrate the act of painting itself.

The close-up composition removes all context, drawing the viewer into a world of color, rhythm, and form. Shapes become swirls. Petals become brushstrokes. The bloom itself blurs the line between realism and abstraction.

Though based on a real rose, this painting isn’t a literal rendering. It’s an exploration of color, light, and movement, filtered through instinct and emotion.

I wanted to capture both the softness and sensuality of the rose, and the rhythmic, almost beating energy of the spiral at its center.

It feels alive.

“Where the Storm Meets the Light”

Oil on canvas, 12”x12”

Painted from the open landscapes of Colorado, this painting captures the electric contrast of a storm rolling in over golden fields. The atmosphere is alive — wind-swept, shifting, almost cinematic in its tension. The deep, moody blues of the sky swirl above, while the sun continues to cast light on the field below, refusing to fully give way to the oncoming weather.

There’s a sense of motion in the brushwork, especially in the clouds, that makes the sky feel like it’s in conversation with the land — or maybe in conflict with it. And yet, despite the looming storm, there’s a strange optimism here. The small white barn anchors the scene in stillness, and the glowing foreground reminds us that even under threat of thunder, light can hold its own.

This painting isn’t just about weather — it’s about emotional weather, about those moments in life when change gathers on the horizon and you feel both grounded and shaken. It’s dramatic and quiet at once. A moment of transition. A landscape you can feel.

“Before the Rain”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

There’s a quiet intensity in the moments just before a storm…that charged stillness, the hush that falls over the landscape. Before the Rain captures that fleeting space in time: moody clouds rolling in, the ocean shifting in tone, and the beach caught between peace and anticipation.

The palette is limited but evocative: greenish blues feel lush and vibrant against the neutral sand, while stormy grays bring depth without becoming heavy. It’s not just a seascape — it feels like a mood. There’s tension in the air. The kind of moment that makes you stop walking and stare out at the water for a while.

Though this scene is from Kauai, where I lived for six years, this painting isn’t rooted in nostalgia. It’s one of my favorite landscapes, not because of memory, but because of the mood, the movement, the layered emotion it carries. The brushwork is expressive but intentional. I love the way the strokes on the water invite a bit of play, while the sky holds a quiet weight. It’s simple, yet powerful. The atmosphere feels both serene and dramatic, a rare and beautiful tension.

When I look at it, I feel calmed, but also alert, like the world is holding its breath. It’s contemplative and quietly stirring.

“Soft Burn”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

This painting is an exploration of simplicity, color, and calm. I was drawn to the limited palette; the deep reds, glowing oranges, and soft golden light, and how they could speak volumes without needing much detail.

There’s a stillness here that quiets my mind. At the same time, a few abstract strokes in the water break the silence just enough to invite a bit of playfulness. The painting became less about place or memory, and more about atmosphere, light, warmth, and restraint. A study in how much can be said with very little.

“The Quiet Curve”

Oil on canvas, 24”x36”

This painting is a self-portrait that focuses on detail, tenderness, and simplicity. My vanilla orchid tattoo, along with a smaller one on my wrist, felt like natural focal points. I wanted to create a sense of softness and safety within the body, especially in contrast to the stark black background. This was less about showing my full self and more about honoring a piece of me.

“Shirley”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

This portrait is of my mother-in-law, Shirley…a kind, steady, and deeply loving woman. I had hoped to express my love and admiration for her through this painting, capturing not just her likeness but the warmth she radiates. I later gave the finished piece to her daughter, who has also shown me so much love and acceptance over the years. This painting was a way of honoring them both.

“Winterface”

Oil on canvas, 14”x14”

This abstract self-portrait was painted in the aftermath of heartbreak…a quiet unraveling that I kept to myself. I didn’t talk about the pain or show it outwardly, but I expressed and let it live here, on canvas. On the surface, it’s just another “weird abstract,” but beneath it lies a swollen, tear-streaked face caught in a snowstorm of emotion.

The winter theme reflects the cold, empty feeling that followed the loss. Snowflakes fall silently, like all the words I never said. The bold shapes and surreal layers mask my sadness, just as I did in real life.

Winterface was what I showed the world while I was quietly falling apart. Painting—especially abstract—has always been my way of telling a story and expressing myself without ever having to say a word.

“When the Sky Caught Fire”

Oil on canvas, 16”x 20”

This painting was inspired by a sunset I witnessed while walking in Red Mountain Park in Mesa, Arizona — a place I visited nearly every day when I lived nearby. That evening, the sky erupted in color, the clouds igniting in shades of crimson, gold, and violet. I painted it soon after, trying to capture not just the colors, but the feeling…that moment of awe when nature stops you in your tracks.

Arizona gifted me some of the most unforgettable sunsets I’ve ever witnessed — even after living in places like Hawaii, California, New York, and New Jersey. When clouds rolled in over the desert, it often meant something spectacular was about to unfold in the sky. Though I’ve since moved from Arizona to New York, those sunsets remain vivid in my memory — the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

“Where the Silence Was”

Oil on canvas, 16”x20”

2009

This painting was created during a time in my life when everything felt uncertain…personally, emotionally, and even artistically. I had always identified as a portrait and abstract artist, but something in me wanted to prove myself wrong about what I thought I couldn’t do. I believed I wasn’t capable of painting landscapes. It sounds strange to say now, but at the time, that self-imposed limit felt real.

So I set out to teach myself. I was going through a rough time outside of art and I needed something else to focus on. This painting was from that period of quiet determination and struggle. The snow-covered trees, painted with a muted calmness, became a kind of therapy. I remember my younger sister liking this piece in particular, and that meant the world to me.

This painting represents not just a new skill learned, but a turning point in how I saw myself as an artist, no longer boxed in by old stories. I now paint landscapes regularly, along with portraits, abstracts, and anything else I feel called to create.

“Xxxtentacion”

Oil on canvas, 24”x30”

This portrait of the late rapper Xxxtentacion was created as a birthday gift for my stepson, who deeply admired both the artist and his music. When I asked him if he could have a painting of anyone in the world, he didn’t hesitate, he chose Xxxtentacion.

I poured everything I had into this piece. Xxxtentacion was a huge influence on my stepson as well as his entire generation. As I painted, I listened to his music and found myself connecting with it. I ended up loving many of his songs too.

My stepson was so happy with the painting, and it still hangs in his room to this day. Being a stepmom can be tricky at times, and I was grateful to bond with him through art and music—two things powerful enough to bridge any gap.

“The Loop”

Oil on canvas, 12” x 12”

This painting is of Red Mountain Park in Mesa, Arizona…a place that quietly helped me through a major turning point in my life. After the end of a tumultuous six-year relationship, I walked this park 2–3 times a day with my three dogs, circling the large lake at its center, lap after lap after lap. That loop became my ritual, my therapy, and eventually, my bridge to something new.

It was here that I brought my current husband when we first met. He walked it with me as he quit smoking. We got to know each other on that path, walking through our own changes. This park saw the end of one life and the beginning of another.

This painting captures one of those walks—a blue, moody sky mirrored in the water. A moment of stillness in the middle of motion. I live in New York now, but Red Mountain Park still holds a piece of my heart. It always will.

“The Investment”

Oil on canvas, 36”x36”

This is a portrait of my cousin (really, more like a brother) painted around 2000 or 2001. At the time, I was three or four years into my art journey and dreaming of how to make a living from painting. I thought if I created something truly exceptional, something that captured someone we all loved, maybe (hopefully) his mother would be moved to buy it.

So I poured everything I had into the painting. I even brought in my younger sister, also an artist, and together we labored over every detail. It was the hardest I had ever worked on a painting up until then. I was incredibly proud of it.

When it was finished, I showed it to my aunt, and tried to sell it to her. She was livid. She couldn’t believe I’d ask for money instead of giving it to her as a gift. We argued and eventually I gave her the painting. It still hangs in her home today.

It makes me laugh now. I set out to make my first big sale, and instead walked straight into my first time getting ripped off. Just kidding, I meant to say a lesson about love and generosity…something like that. 😜