From the Easel

 Why I’m creating more ways to experience art beyond the canvas...   Not Everything I Create Ends Up on a Wall  Skip to the end if you don't like reading! I know that might sound surprising. People usually see the finished pieces. The ones in galleries. The ones hanging nicely in someone’s home, behaving themselves. What they don’t see is how many ideas come before that. Hundreds of them. Maybe more. Some stay sketches. Some should stay sketches!! And some turn into something more. I’ve spent years refining my process. Learning how to take an idea, sit with it, push it, and decide what’s worth bringing to life. At this point, I’m blessed to explore that process in different ways. Because not everyone connects to art the same way. And not everyone wants to invest in a piece right away, I mean I have expensive art for expensive collectors and budget friendly art for budgeting patrons YET! Sometimes folk just want to see what it’s like to wear the creative ruby s...

  In Touch With My Ancestry: The Parts of Me That Speak There’s a sentence I’ve been learning to say out loud without judgement: I am not Black and I am not white. I am mixed—Afro-American father, Irish mother and both of them live in me. Not just in a family-tree kind of way. In a daily-life kind of way. They show up when I’m making coffee and listening to music. When I’m driving. When I’m painting. When I’m sitting with a question I didn’t know I needed to ask. Or when my son calls to talk. They speak sometimes softly, sometimes like they’ve been waiting their turn, it seems I am hearing them for the first time.  This newest body of work has been a discovery beyond words. It has taken me into places I didn’t expect to go. There are dark corners. There are lights at the end of tunnels. And there are moments where I’ve had to admit: I don’t know as much as I thought I should. That “should” has been heavy. Researching Black history in America really researching it, not s...

  Truth In Anxiety 24 x 18 Mixed Media   Creativity has long been dismissed as indulgent, something reserved for childhood, hobbies, or retirement. But I believe creativity is not a luxury. It is a responsibility. It is an act of kindness we offer the world. For me, kindness through creativity doesn’t mean soft edges or easy answers. It means creating space. Space to feel. Space to question. Space to connect. In a world that often rushes toward division and noise, creativity can slow us down just enough to see one another again. Where It Began: Remembering What Moved Us In 2018, I self-published my first solo exhibit as a full-time artist   (respectively I had family and friends helping to it success) . It was called Childhood Memories . At the time, I was stepping into unfamiliar territory not just showing "my work" but committing fully to art as my life’s work. That exhibit wasn’t about nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It was about remembering what moved us when ...

  Self Portrait 2021 Every New Year people talk about “big leaps.” But if I’m being honest… this year reminded me that the real transformation happens in the groundwork. I’ve been laying a foundation for the last four years, pursuing an artist life full-time, showing up when it felt uncertain, learning what I’m made of, and slowly building something that looks like a real, steady artist career … not just a dream I talk about. And yes, it was hard.  But the hardest part wasn’t the workload.  It was getting to know me . W hat I’m drawn to, what I’m called to say, what I’m willing to protect, and where I actually want to go. Because if you don’t know that… you’ll spend years doing good things that still don’t feel like yours . The unexpected relationships changed everything One of the biggest gifts this year was forging relationships I never saw coming, we rarely do . The kind that open doors, shift perspective, and remind you that you don’t build a meaningful ar...

Photo by Jarry Photos (aka my talented Son)  After years of chasing many directions, then moving to a place where I could focus solely on building my art career (seriously building) I built a formula that keeps me centered: Activity + Art Opportunity = Leveling Up (Career • Financial Wellbeing • Purpose) Or  Activity – Alignment with Art = Depletion (When what I do doesn’t feed what I’m called to create, it empties instead of fills.) Every idea I choose gets measured against that. Does it help me level up — or pull me away from where I’m meant to go? If it’s not aligning with my art, my purpose, or my peace, it’s a side track… not a side gig. This is a question I face a lot in my career.  Faith Reset Reality When my thoughts spiral, I pray. I journal. I talk out loud    to myself, my family (who grew up in a creative house as well) my mentors and sometimes even to the walls of my studio.  It’s in those moments that peace settles in and I can finally take in...

  I’ve been working on my Be a Lady series for a while now (Since 2020) and it’s honestly one of the hardest art series I’ve ever done. Not because of the materials or technique, but because I’m constantly questioning what I’m really trying to say and how I’m supposed to say it. This series isn’t just about me. It’s about the women I’ve encountered, listened to and learned from. Each one has shared a piece of her story, and I feel a real responsibility to carry that honestly in my work. But that’s easier said than done. When I start painting, I’ll walk up to the canvas confident—I think I know the colors, the mood, the direction. I start loose and free, then suddenly I tighten up. I stop feeling and start overthinking. I step back, say to myself, “Okay, I know now,” then step forward and lose it all over again. The more I add, the less it feels right. The energy shifts. The painting feels off not just technically, which it is hard to paint on 5 x 5 feet canvas (they are bigger t...