I’m an artist, teacher, gardener, pet mom, and neurodivergent full-time nerd.
I live in a small port town called Iroquois, Ontario on the St. Lawrence River. Our locks control the water level in Lake Ontario. My husband and I live on a 15-acre property with our dogs and rabbit I’ve worked in retail, IT, and web design, was a college instructor, and a Builds artist in the animation industry (I basically build the props and characters for the animators).
I’ve always loved art. I took every art course I could in school and won a scholarship before I was 5 in a colouring contest that helped pay for my art schooling. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Queen’s University and an Animation Production Diploma from a private Toronto college called Max the Mutt College of Animation, Art, and Design.
When I’m not working I love to spend my time in the garden with the flowers and veggies, or read Terry Pratchett books, play video games (especially RPGs), or binge a good series on Netflix or Disney+. I love some good fantasy or science fiction like Star Trek and The Hobbit Series. Okay. okay, I might also spend a ton of time watching Formula 1, Hockey, Football, Soccer, and Baseball…what can I say? I love a good competition.
MY ART
Art, Influences, and Ideas
I’ve always found that actions or images speak way louder than words for me. So a lot of the ideas in my art come from processing past experiences and trying to interpret emotions when words don’t come to me. I love to play with contrast and duality with colours, subjects, elements in the painting etc. This comes from wanting to express that people are complex and contradictions can exist in us and with what society expects of us. Most of my life experience has been of kinda fitting in everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I hope the images and colours that I use in my art can even make light of some topics.
The way I approach my art, very intuitive and following my gut to start and finish a piece, comes from three major influences, The book The Artist’s Way, another book called Big Magic, and getting the opportunity to take classes with the artist Linzy Arnott. The Artist’s Way helped me reconnect to what I loved and helped me develop a routine to keep the ideas flowing. Big Magic really punched me in the gut with the concept of “stop trying to monetize everything”! Just make the art you want and eventually, things will make sense. Lastly, Linzy’s meditative process and lessons allowed me to really loosen up my art. These three things really got me to break free from the riding approach to art that school and my personal fears put in me.
There are many artists I admire, however, I think the three biggest for me are Tahlia Stanton, Jon Wassom and Chris Guest. I love Tahlia’s collage paintings that tell a story in symbols and layers. All of her elements blend together flawlessly. Jon Wassom has such a unique way of breaking down an image into bright colours and shapes. Lastly, Chris Guest’s work is just so fun and cute full of bright colours and an awesome loose painting style that I would love to try and emulate.
PROCESS​
Acrylic, Oil, Graphite, Ink, PaintStick. Spray Paint, Foil, Glitter…so many options
A Trip to a Neon Dream World
Over the years my art has really taken a departure from the art I was trained on that was heavily steeped in tradition. While I still do traditional art with commissions, I prefer to work with less planning and a more intuitive approach, blending abstraction with illustration and a touch of realism collaged in. I want my art to remain fun, with lots of freedom, so I follow my gut and make art I would put on my walls
Each painting starts with a ritualistic, intuitive approach as I lay down an abstract background that is the groundwork for what the piece will become. I then spend time rotating and examining the background until I see one of my ideas in it. I have a bunch of notes on my cell phone and in my sketchbook of ideas I have for paintings as they come to me. Sometimes they come from dreams, sometimes they come from a situation I experienced and I use the art to process it. Words are not my strong point and emotions can be very overwhelming for me so sometimes making a painting is a much easier way for my brain to process information. It also gives me the opportunity to make something bright and happy by drawing from something that might have initially been negative for me.
The process now becomes a logical, reductive development of my concept with specific references and elements in mind. I will usually have 2, or sometimes 3, paintings going at once, in different stages. Any figures in the work will be laid down in graphite, like an illustration. If some of the line work remains, I leave it. When I go to add any final touches I even add lines sometimes to flatten areas or bring attention to them. The contrast of developed figures with heavy line work like graffiti or a comic book always appealed to me. I will sometimes finish the painting with oils if I want a particular glow to the subjects. However, most of the time, I will finish the piece by adding shapes, scribbles, overlays, drips and other design elements to add more detail.
The neon, bold colours in my work simply come from my love of colour and neon lights and anything that glows like fireflies, jellyfish and the northern lights (though I have never had the opportunity to see them in person). With the number of people that stop me and compliment me on my ever-changing hair colour, but then turn around and say they wish they would be brave enough to do the same, I know, deep down, a lot of people love bright and bold colours.