I have come to love the quotes of Vincent Van Gogh...always a lover of his art, but this year - looking for inspirational quotes to post in my studio, I fell in love.

A quick google search will yield many good ones...

Yet as I sat trying to put together my new website and being scared to death to really put myself out there (out there!  Out of my comfortable circle of friends, cheerleaders, and sweet studio family - and my very own sweet family), I found it.  I found the quote that said exactly how I was feeling and then I noticed - it was by Vincent Van Gogh, hmmmm.

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart" - Vincent Van Gogh

Being in it with all your heart...is for me a deep love and appreciation for a gift, a talent, that honestly up until a few years ago I just really overlooked.  I am a designer by trade and most of my "intense art training" focused on details, small, fine details - something that fit very naturally for me.  I tend to be detailed - I love typography and I notice the fonts and size variations used, I notice the placement of an object - spot on or slightly off.  Now some of you are probably saying, good golly - you are just OCD, but not really.  I just see things that some people don't.

So when life threw me a curve ball, (that is really an understatement - I was diagnosed with an advanced stage of breast cancer) that detailed comfort zone, got a little shook up.  Fine repetitive movement began to yield very undesirable outcomes.  So many of the things I loved to do and what I felt were apart of  "who I was" were not my friends anymore.

I knew I loved art...and that is where this journey began.  I knew if I wanted to keep living a creative life, I had to change the way I thought about art, the way I created art.  I am constantly seeking to retrain myself, I am striving to come out of it all a better person, and (on most days) I am in it with all my heart.  Thankful to be evolving into hopefully a better version of myself. Sometimes that's hard to see.  And, as awful and frustrating as some days may be, painting has become my peaceful retreat.

Now here I am sharing my gift of peace through my art.