Like most kids, my summers were filled with athletic day camps while my parents worked. I followed the summer pastime to middle school and high school team tryouts. Tennis and dance were necessary outlets that channeled the teenage-small-town-only-child-rage at the world energy into something productive — community.

Art was always an outlet for me; however, in high school, I switched gears and focused on more STEM-based classes until my junior year when I enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Art course. Initially, enrolling in the class was meant to meet the state requirement while adding a cushion to my GPA for College applications. The reality was that I hated the class, the assignments felt too advanced, the teacher was very brash, and this year especially, I felt lost in what I wanted to do. It took one assignment, three weeks before school got out for the summer, to change my life trajectory. The assignment was to draw a photo-realistic image chosen by the teacher; she made me redraw in colored pencil a fish three times before allowing me to turn it in. After that, a switch flipped, and I knew I wanted to pursue art.

By falling into sports and being forced into the arts in high school, I quickly understood the importance of support systems. Both activities followed me into college, eventually leading me to experiment with marks and lines to visually depict movement. I live in a studied whirlwind consisting of academia, work, and travel, all of which inspire my art. Reconnecting with athletics has brought muscle memory and repetition to the forefront of my work.  

Imagine the field is a canvas, the ball is the medium, and the athletes are the artists. Athletic events contain so much emotional and physical movement. The intricate differences between sports emphasize the importance of muscle memory or repetition of movements in their respective athletes. I have been focusing on athletics in my paintings, primarily as something I have stumbled into loving. A juxtaposition of pace is reflected well between painting and training. It forces the hand of the artist and athlete—every decision matters.