The Colour of Becoming: Reclaiming Childhood Wonder Through Art
‘My art is one of the ways I notice and express my feelings, and I want to invite others to do the same as they view it.‘
– How did you get the idea of painting landscapes with pastel colours? It’s not something you see often.
I’d say there are two things that influenced the shift to using brighter pastel colors in my paintings. When I first began painting landscapes several years ago, I stuck with shades that reflected the natural world. It was helpful for me to mimic the colors I studied in nature while I was learning different painting techniques. Additionally, I started out using watercolor and gouache, and these materials lended themselves well to more muted tones.
However, exploring acrylics ignited a dormant love of vibrant hues I had when I was a child. Somewhere along the way of becoming an adult, I put away those bold colours, and picked up quieter, calmer ones instead. Yet, the more I reconnected with my inner artist child through playing with colour, the clearer my authentic artist voice became. I realised how colors could help tell the story I wanted to share through my paintings, and shape landscapes through a particular lens of emotion I longed to capture. Now I love using bright colors and pastels to add whimsy, romance, and joy to the landscapes I paint.
– You speak a lot about the wilderness, why is that so?
When I graduated college in 2020, my life suddenly felt like wilderness: disorienting, chaotic, and empty. I’d worked so hard to build a busy and full life, and I didn’t know who I was anymore as I watched it all dissolve. Without as many distractions, old fears and insecurities came to the forefront that I knew I couldn’t ignore anymore. As I started therapy and embarked on the healing journey, I picked up painting to help process my grief and get off screens. Painting became a form of prayer, a way to reconnect with my Creator and ground myself in my God-given creative identity.
During this time, I became fascinated with the concept of spiritual wilderness, which are seasons when life as you know it starts to unravel and take on new shapes. I read about the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the third century, who intentionally left society to live in wilderness in order to break free from false identities they’d clung to in the city. The more I learned about wilderness seasons, the better I understood their unique purpose in bringing transformation and growth. It changed the way I saw my circumstances and allowed me to embrace discomfort and the unknown. I love painting wilderness landscapes to express the complex feelings of this experience, so others going through wilderness seasons feel less alone.
– How did your creative journey start?
My creative journey started when I was a little girl, and I’m so grateful for the opportunities my parents and education gave me to explore my creative gifts. My mom studied art history in college, so she always had art supplies and crafts around the house, and we’d visit museums together. I often picked up creative hobbies, dabbling in photography, baking, sewing, and more. Art and English were my favorite subjects in school, and I put my best efforts into any project that let me be creative. I also fell in love with dance early on, and trained in ballet through high school. Now I can see how all of these childhood activities honed my artistic eye and guided me on my unconventional, yet authentic creative path.
– What parts of your life have you gotten the most inspiration from?
I find myself drawing the most creative inspiration from my childhood, my design background and my faith. It’s beautiful to look back on myself at, say, five years old and see how her uninhibited creative spirit is still part of me. I’ve felt my creative work become more dynamic and joyful as I reconnect with my inner child and explore what inspired her. The pastel colors, romantic books and movies, and imaginative games that captivated me then are finding their way back to me and into my art.
My background in graphic design also inspires my painting in the forms of clean lines and graphic shapes. I started painting as a way to create using my hands and offset all the time spent creating in front of screens. I love blending these two worlds through paint, whether it’s free-handing straight edges or carefully selecting cohesive limited colour palettes.
Lastly, my spirituality plays a big role in my creative practice. I’ve experienced a deeper connection with God as I’ve embraced my creativity. For years I felt I couldn’t share this side of myself with him, and found myself in church environments that didn’t encourage creativity. Going through wilderness revealed to me the importance of being my authentic self and using my creative gifts to bring beauty into the world. Now I’m passionate about expressing my spiritual experiences through my art to help others connect to their inner world and faith.
– What do you want your art to say? As plainly and honestly as you can make it.
I want my art to be an opportunity for you to slow down, take a breath and experience a glimpse of the divine that’s hidden in every moment. We live in such a loud and busy world that often forces us to push down our humanity and stay on the surface. Yet, it’s so important to pause and tune into our inner world, to acknowledge the fear and pain and to stir up the hope and joy within us. I believe beauty invites us to contemplate the present and the future, to be honest about what hurts and still make room to imagine something better. I hope that my art offers even just a little of that space for you.
– How much of your art is influenced by the poetic side of you?
My art is definitely shaped by the poetic side of me. I often have an idea for a painting or collection that stems from a story or feeling I want to write about. So my poetry and paintings go hand-in-hand, two sides of the same coin that I choose to use based on what will best convey whatever I’m trying to express. Recently, I’ve been exploring ways of intentionally combining my art and writing. I started a series on Substack called “Daily Desert Art Reflections” where I sketch a desert and share some thoughts I sensed while creating it. There’s something special about pairing words with imagery that creates a richer, fuller picture as each medium touches our hearts and minds differently.
– ‘capturing the hidden beauty that grows in challenging seasons and environments.’ What do you mean by this?
Wilderness seasons can be really disorienting. So much can be changing in and around us, and we often experience grief and resistance to change. I’ve found that even in those painful seasons and harsh climates, beauty can still grow. Maybe you discover a part of you that you felt was buried, or grow closer to friends and family. Looking for those moments of lightness and joy makes the process a little more bearable. Just as wildflowers find a way to bloom in dry deserts, there are pockets of hope in every season.
– How do you think a desert can blossom?
There’s something about wilderness, both in the physical and metaphorical sense, that births resilience and transformation. It brings us to the end of ourselves to make us confront and embrace our humanity, to reach out for a source of hope and strength beyond just us. Ultimately, I believe God is that source of new life that fills our emptiness and hopelessness. The Creator is always creating, and it’s been amazing to see in the past few years how areas of my life that felt dead are coming back to life. New purpose, new dreams, and new creative ideas sprouting from nowhere. Though I do my best to intentionally create a meaningful life, I’m dependent on him to bring the kind of renewal in my heart and world that’s beyond my control.
– Last but not least, if your creativity could only come from either your heart or your brain, where would you choose and why?
If I had to choose, I’d pick my heart because I care so much about the emotions I pour into each painting. Our Western world tends to emphasise the mind, and while it’s so important to think and engage the intellect, I sense we all need to tune into the rest of our bodies and hearts to live the full human experience. My art is one of the ways I notice and express my feelings, and I want to invite others to do the same as they view it.
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