Painting With Purpose #4: How I Paint the Light

When I stand in front of a blank canvas, I’m not just thinking about color or composition. I’m thinking about what it feels like to stand in a place that makes your heart exhale. I’m thinking about the moment someone sees the finished piece and feels something click into place inside of them. Like hope woke up again.

Painting isn’t a performance for me—it’s a process of becoming. Each piece starts as a nudge. An emotional impression. A half-formed image. Something I don’t fully understand yet, but feel pulling at me anyway.

Sometimes I start with color. Sometimes it’s a place or how I can represent a concept in a place or image. Sometimes it’s just an energy I want to chase. I move fast in the beginning. Loose, messy, intuitive. The canvas gets loud. There are bold decisions. Vibrant strokes. Texture and movement. It’s not always pretty at first—but that’s the point.

Because underneath every finished piece is the evidence of a journey.

I paint in layers—emotionally and physically. There are underpaintings and redirections, colors that get scraped back and painted over. There’s tension. There’s risk. There’s a whole story that gets buried before the final layer ever shows up.

That’s why I say my work isn’t soft. It’s beauty with edge. The kind of beauty that’s fought for. The kind that knows what it cost to get there. The kind that leaves a mark - a residue of the battle won to get there through layer and texture and work.

Especially as a woman, there’s always something deeper underneath beauty. There’s grit. Grief. Pressure. Growth that scraped you raw before it made you wise. I carry all of that into my work, but I don’t let it have the final word.

The final word is always light.

Even when the colors are rich and moody, or when the forms are abstract or unexpected, there’s always movement toward something better. Toward clarity. Toward becoming.

Because I don’t just want my art to be looked at. I want it to be lived with. I want it to speak to people. To remind them what’s possible. To create space for remembering, for rising, for breathing again. My art is meant to remind you of your that softness can hide strength and beauty can be a rebellion.

That’s why I paint.