I was born and raised in Elk Grove Village, a suburb about 30 minutes from Chicago. I've always been in the arts, but chose to make graphic design my career when my high school art teacher told me that's the only way I could make a living as an artist (so not true!). I graduated from Northern Illinois University with a BFA in Visual Communications, packed up my car and moved to Tempe, AZ for a fun few years. In 2006 I made my way back to Chicago and have been living in the city since with my husband, Kyle, and my dog, June. I live in the Wicker Park neighborhood and my studio is in the West Loop. I dream of one day living somewhere that's warm year-round where I can stand up paddleboard, live in sandals, and plant a mango or avocado tree in my backyard.

I was a graphic designer for most of my professional career and co-founded the design studio Knoed in 2011. We focused on branding for startups and small businesses, where we'd concept and design their logo, identity, packaging, website, etc. I discovered my love for painting in 2016 when I was creating the visual identity for a new apothecary. I wanted to use watercolor washes in their identity so I bought the supplies and started experimenting. I loved watching the paint react to water and the effect it gave once it dried. I liked that it had a mind of its own and was hard to control. It allowed me to let go of needing things to be perfect, which was freeing and therapeutic. So I bought more supplies and explored painting as a personal project, trying different ideas and techniques until I had a vision for my art which is how I eventually developed my own style.

I start out knowing what the color palette is and then I think about the feeling I want the painting to have. That feeling will tie into a memory of mine that I'll use for inspiration. I'll think about what I saw, how I felt and what happened in that moment. I distill those thoughts and feelings down into shapes, marks and textures. I start a painting with an idea of what it’s going to be, but it almost always leads me down a path I don’t see coming. I react to the painting as I go, making the next layer based on the composition and color of the previous layer. If I get stuck, I usually take a picture of it and sketch ideas using Procreate to know what to do next. Or I’ll set it aside and think about it for a couple days. I know a painting is done when it just feels right and I wouldn’t add another thing to it.

It’s ok to not know everything you think you should know. I struggled with that in the beginning. Not that long ago I saw the quote “Every expert was once a beginner.” and it really struck a chord with me. We all start out somewhere—the beginning is all about guessing, making mistakes and failing. It’s what you have to do in order to learn and develop. I learned what I know the hard way because I didn’t take a single class on painting in art school and I don’t have anyone to guide me through it. So I learned what I know about painting through trial and error, Google searches and YouTube videos, and I’m still learning every day. We're all just figuring it out as we go and that's ok.

The obvious sources of inspiration are Instagram and Pinterest. I follow artists who inspire me and enjoy seeing how their work evolves. My biggest source of inspiration is nature and the different landscapes I've seen while hiking and camping. I'll look at photos from past trips and study the details of the mountains, clouds, water or rocks. I also pull inspiration from my daily surroundings in the city, usually when I'm on a walk outside. There might be spray paint on a mailbox that creates an interesting texture or someone's landscaping uses rocks in an interesting composition. I constantly take pictures of textures and colors that inspire me and save them to an album on my phone.

When I first started out, all I had was watercolor paper and I didn't know how to work with canvas (stretch it, prime it, etc). Plus a lot more space is needed for storing canvases and more materials and tools are needed for stretching canvas, which I didn't have the space or budget for. So paper is what I went with. But after trying out canvas later on, I learned that paper is much better suited for my techniques and for scanning the art to make prints. I still love that paper takes up less space and it's much easier to ship too. There's an art to stretching paper and hand tearing the edges that I enjoy as well. I will probably do a few paintings on canvas at some point but paper will always be my first choice.