Finished up adding neon green/glaze for an eerie element to my childhood fireplace and started some backgrounds for some drawings with ink/fluids. Happy rainy Monday! 

Boughthigh fluid neon & bright hues. Started the revamp of this old big boy 60x48. The family is nagging me to go to eat so I’ll finish soon

Did a quick sketch yesterday on an old highly textured piece of the start of my Samurai.I know it’s hard to see what will be but I can see it 

I whited out her face to restart it. I wanted the angle changed on how she was watching things. This is going to be quite visceral. But this series isn’t supposed to be all rainbows and sunshine. The big digger Pine trees I loved so much growing up are gone from the fire. I put them in her-ablaze. Art is supposed to bring out feeling and emotion. My challenge to all of you is to FEEL 

Stuck her in front of my treadmill to figure out the next step. I’m tempted to leave her as is. I love the rawness and subtle muscle. It’s extremely tricky To know WHEN to stop as an artist. I’ve ruined pieces before. My best advice to my daughters and budding artists is put it somewhere you can contemplate and think about it. Natural light is best. Sometimes it can be months before it hits you. Work on other ones while you wait the “click”. #ballerina #ballet #tutu #painting #figurepainting #figuredrawing #femaleform #art #interiordesign #losangeles #newyork #gallery#femaleartist #dancer

I know I keep posting the progress on this. Here’s some alternativeprospective shots showing depth/detail #abstractart #abstractpainting #figurativeart #portrait #art #painting #artistsoninstagram #california #femaleartist #losangeles #newyork #brushwork #surrealism #arts #artgallery #gallery #forestfires #series #interiordesign #modernart #contemporaryart

Thought the best thing for me was to battle this for the new year. It’s the fireplace from my childhood home that burnt down. We lost all three homes in that fire. Painting this was hard for me. I hit so many emotions. Multiple layers of paint including some flames with were muted later. In the end I feel ready. Ready to let go of my past, but keep it close as it should. My short story is posted with this on my blog/website. If you’re going through grief or rough patches I would love to help you. God saved me. He gave me art as a life raft. Without Him and without it I would be lost. Like I said shoot me and email or DM if you need some encouragement or just an ear or guidance into painting! Happy New Year friends. 

After the pics is my short back story:  

Sometimes I still feel the loss in the pit of my stomach. Like I was punched. There’s no more going back, or visiting the walls of my childhood. The tangible evidence that served as my adolescent sanctuary is gone for good. It’s so hard to wrap my head around. I visit my house, my old life in my dreams. Touching the walls, walking through it’s long halls. I like to think of my house as alive. Like it’s trapped in the Upside Down as my brother in law said. Like it’s waiting for me and my siblings in another place. Waiting for us to come home.

When I was a young  18, married a Marine who was my brother’s friend in Boot Camp at USMC, San Diego. We married in the little  church next to my father’s house in Old Shasta. Amazingly the church survived the Carr Fire. The firefighters used the water from my father’s pool to save the church. I’m happy they did. Even though that marriage was doomed and didn’t endure, I still like the feeling that something from my past still stands.

  I’m going to give a brief summation on our father without defaming his name. I don’t want to do that. We we’re raised by both our mom and dad. Our dad worked as a respiratory therapist at Redding Medical and Redbluff Hospitals. He was barely at home. When he was he was at arms length, distant, and often played mind games. I didn’t realize what a “real” father was supposed to be like until my second husband Dean filled his role remarkably with our four daughters.

So back to when I was 18. My husband and I moved down to San Clemente because he was stationed at Pendleton.  Then I h

  My ex husband and I came home to visit after visiting his home in Denver. I was so homesick on that trip. My sister had given birth to my second niece Danika, and I missed it. I felt such longing to retrieve my hometown, my friends, just to hike in the hilly woods behind my house. It was nighttime When we drove over the mountains from Reno and as we came over the mountain and saw Redding’s lights shining like a beacon of hope, my heart sunk. Could I go back? I felt like it was all right there in front of me, but I couldn’t go back. That single memory will live with me forever.

  I had to come stay with my parents during my first year of marriage to my ex because he went on a six month deployment overseas. I didn’t know that going back home would make me feel so displaced. Like I was in limbo. My dad and I had an altercation during this time over his same mind games. For the first time I stood up to him. I had realized after being away how abusive he was. My mom has to step between us as my dad came at me with fury in his eyes. Later that night my mom came to my room and said she was finally ready to leave him. All her kids were grown and she couldn’t live like this anymore.  So, we packed up a small uhaul and I helped her leave my dad. She left him without telling him. I left a note for him. My mom moved in with me in San Clemente whole my ex was overseas. I kept in contact with my dad until the following year. He came down but I never felt comfortable, and he was still controlling. I talked to my sister and I decided to cut ties with my father. My brother and sister did one a year later and the other followed after many altercations.

Speeding forward, my family confronted me about my marriage to my first was abusive. I had married someone like my father. With help from my mom I loved away to Seal Beach to be near my mom and her new husband.

My sister wanted me to move back to Redding, but how could I go? I had a failed marriage. I missed my home, my house. Our father stilled lives there. With his new family. He married a woman just a few years older than my sister. She had kids. I tried not to have resentment because we all cut ties. We left. But I did.

When the fire started I kept in constant contact with my sister about where it was. I remember it being in French Gulch. I expressed to my sis what if it comes to Old Shasta? No one thought it would. My sweet Old Shasta. I adored growing up there. Walking to J’s Market to buy Jolly Rancher Sticks with my brother. Playing “army” with my over zealous brother near the cemetery about Shasta Elementary. Picking berries for pancakes along Middle Creek for Saturday morning pancakes. Hanging out stockings on the fireplace while laying under the Christmas tree. That fireplace was my favorite place.

My brother in law is a Shasta County Sheriff. He sent me and my sis photos of the structure after the fire. What will always haunt me is seeing the fireplace still there standing among the rubble. Like it was saying “I’m still here”. When my family and I came up on Thanksgiving my sister and brother in law took us to see the properties. Well we went to see all three houses we lived in that all three burned down. The last one was the one we lived in the longest. All of the rubble had been cleared. It looked son different from what I remembered. We took a fireplace brick. I look at it everyday.

I decided to paint a new expressionist figurative series that displays embodiment with fire in the background. With the fire I feel like I can let go now. I can move on from my past. It also brought me home. I rarely visited up there anymore, but after the fire hit; there’s a longing I cannot shake. I plan to visit Redding often. It’s in my blood.

My new Art pieces are under review from New York, LA, London, and Santa Monica. I’m hoping I can bring some light to my sweet town. I know it’s not really a “town” but a city now. I like to think of it as a town. It’s more dear to me.

So this is my short story of my love for my town rekindled. Reborn from the ashes.

My camera phone is having trouble catching the heated tones on this. Almost finished with 1st in my Fire series

Three sketches for my daughter’s three amazing friends for Christmas. I’ve known these three since kindergarten. (Sophomores now). It was my first go at sketching a skull, Riley likes skulls 💀Merry Christmas you guys! @reese__walker @jacobower Aimee & Riley 

reworked her face and arms, hands are next, 

I did a quick sketch lesson for a client who picked up a commissioned geometric illustration. 

Closing up work on my Figurative Fire Series. I’ll start 3 while I finish up 2

Don’t mind my phone shadow. Working on a commission sketch #geometricart #lineart #waves #illustration #drawing #circleart #paintpen #charcoal #art #artistsoninstagram #losangeles

More work today adding in some heat highlights here and there on these two ladies. Just starting the one where she’s sitting . . #brushwork  #gallery #artist #painting #workinprogress #figurativeart #figurativeartist #abstract #artist #contemporaryart #california #artofinstagram #modernart #artworks

Started second in my new series. Sooo I either really sprained my ankle or fractured it Sunday. I was able to sketch/paint the layout with my foot propped up. I’m bumming big time. This oneis a blend of my second born and me. It’s hard to see but she’s sitting looking over her back 

Starting to define the hands, face and body on “Leftover”#working #painting #figurativepainting #abstractart #portraiture #modernart #art #artist #californiafires #redding #oldshasta #oldmeetsnew #interiordesign #artgallery #gallery #losangeles #forestfire

This Thanksgiving my family drove up to visit my sister and her family in Redding. We went up to see where our childhood houses burnt down in Old Shasta and the first one is on Victoria overlooking the valley. We visited the house we first lived in for over a year, before we moved into the one in Old Shasta which we were in s long time before my parents split, our dad still lived there but we hadn’t spoke since I was 19. The first pic is the property where our first house was. The elementary school I went to before 5th was saved. Which was across from our dad’s house. I was sick with a cold so I didn’t visit any old friends. I plan to come up more often. I miss it up there so much. In these pics where the sawdust is , is where the House was. The fireplace remains are off to the side. I took s brick to keep. I guess FEMA came through and cleared all the rubble. I debated on posting but then I realized my new work is inspired by this. My vulnerability as an artist is already out there. This is just the “back” story to it. Maybe it’ll help people to realize the truth behind my work. Well, recently anyhow. #oldshasta #redding #carrfire #forestfire #fire #california #hometown #rain #thanksgiving

Back to work on my 40x30 

Shades of Water exhibition

The two pieces will be at the Mezz Gallery in the Montalban Theater in Hollywood from 11/16-1/31. I will be at the opening reception for the group show Friday the 16th 6pm

“Last Man” 40x30, acrylic $3200

 “Impermanent” 48x48, acrylic  heavy texture cherry blossom $3800

Started painting her. I’m using my daughter and old pics of me to blend together  “I see Fire” 40x30 #figureskating #figurativeabstraction #painting #art #modernart #gallery #paintings #losangeles #newyork #interiordesign #artcollector