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My story has been a journey of creative reclamation (from the Old French reclamer, "calling back the hawk") and transformation; uncovering limiting beliefs, breaking down old paradigms, and rebuilding an inner sense of fortitude, self-worth, and self-love from the inside out.
An artist since childhood, my journey into yoga and mindfulness began in 2005 when I was a sophomore attending college on scholarship for art. At the time, I felt unworthy of all the money I had received for my creative gifts, and my fear of losing the financial support kept me blocked in my educational pursuits, manifesting as self-destruction and depression. It was during this period of darkness that I discovered the light of yoga. I devoted the rest of my college career to taking as many yoga classes as I could, sometimes multiple times a day, cleaning toilets in exchange for my studies. My BFA thesis exhibition, a series of life-sized figure drawings exploring yoga asana titled Bringing to Light, was dedicated to exploring the deep sense of calm that I was experiencing for the first time in my adult life. Something was waking up inside of me: something I could not find words for, something I could only experience and understand through my creative practice. It felt as though my soul was being called back home to my body. |
"Messenger: Red Tailed Hawk", Mixed Media on Paper, 2017.
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"Bringing to Light", 4'x6', Charcoal on Arches, 2007.
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"Reclamation", 12"x18", Charcoal on Paper, 2016.
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Art is my tool for integrating that which cannot always be explained, but felt.
In the years that followed, I continued this self-study pathway through a wide range of integrative healing modalities, learning how to feel more connected, healed, and whole within my body, mind, and soul.
This journey of transformation and self-discovery has taken me all over the world, and revealed so many curiosities, archetypes, and potentials that I never knew existed within me.
This journey of transformation and self-discovery has taken me all over the world, and revealed so many curiosities, archetypes, and potentials that I never knew existed within me.
"Edge of Wonder | Málaga, Spain" 24"x36", Acrylic on Canvas, 2018.
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Rock climbing in El Chorro, Málaga, Spain, 2018.
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In my teaching, I often describe this journey of inner transformation as marrying two wings of the Phoenix: the wing of Mindfulness with the wing of Compassion; the Head and the Heart. Body and Soul. It is this coherence between the two that allows for creativity, joy, and fulfillment to flow freely and expansively.
This path of Yoga, of Union, is what that I strive to embody and emanate in everything I bring forward into this world.
This path of Yoga, of Union, is what that I strive to embody and emanate in everything I bring forward into this world.
Home studio in Rumford, RI. Pictured left is the guidebook to "In the Realm of the Senses", a retrospective from mentor Richard Yarde.
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Heart Chakra Study, from a week-long, self-directed inquiry into the chakra system and bilateral painting as therapeutic healing, January 2021.
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It brings me great joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction to be sharing the tools, practices, and experiences that continue to help me create awareness, overcome self-imposed limitations, and awaken to greater levels of expansion and purpose in my own life.
I'm deeply grateful for all of the incredible teachers, colleagues, friends, family members, clients, patrons, coaches, collaborators, mentors, mentees, and heart-awakening catalysts who have supported, and continue to support, the ever-deepening rooting, rising, and expansion of my inner being.
I'm deeply grateful for all of the incredible teachers, colleagues, friends, family members, clients, patrons, coaches, collaborators, mentors, mentees, and heart-awakening catalysts who have supported, and continue to support, the ever-deepening rooting, rising, and expansion of my inner being.
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