lez be honest, here… i’m not going to stop painting what has set up shop in my heart. this whole series has guided me, in the most effective way possible, through something i like to refer to as a shituation. i mean, for me anyway… i definitely need a break to do some more light-hearted paintings, but this love thing will never leave my heart. it’s just being distributed in a different way. our hearts are like a ball and chain that we lug around with us everywhere we go. if w

raise your hand if you’ve ever seen actual hearts in your breath when that one person is around. heart-shaped smoke rings don’t really count! that’s kinda cheating… love is so mind-altering. i imagine that it’s almost as if it’s all the drug highs bundled into one and it just pounds you in the chest until it finally breaks open. that’s the scary part. when your chest breaks open and you allow yourself to be vulnerable and trust that this person will be gentle with your heart.

there’s a girl i used to know. i know, i know… it’s always about a girl, right? geez… anyway, there’s this girl i used to know. my dudes, she’s the only other girl i’ve ever known who enjoyed jazz with her whole soul the way i do. like, we would send each other jazz songs and we genuinely enjoyed the fact that the other would appreciate it every time. we knew we wouldn’t be judged for our tastes in music. i have a whole collection of jazz vinyls and i absolutely think of her

i have to take breaks to clean my palate/palette before i keep moving forward with the ADCTD series. all of my paintings are super personal, but that series breaks my brain and heart a bit. so when my brain and heart hurt, i take a break and paint something a little different. this one made me think just as much though. we all have that one person we would give the moon to if we could. dude, if i knew i could successfully steal the moon and bring it to someone, i would seriou

i’m still not great at articulating what’s in my heart via the english language. the paint seems to do a better job at translating that for me. i realize it’s not the most effective form of communication for everyone; however, it’s what i have to work with. currently, i sleep in swing shifts. 2 hours here… 15 minutes there… i get way more sleep on the weekends. at least 3-4 more hours, anyway. it’s almost as if i’m living 2 different lives. one side is mathing all day at my

love is so complicated. like, all the different loves, though. love between friends, family, partners… one wrong move and the whole thing is messed up. and there are eleventy million different pieces. and they’re always moving. is there ever really a perfect solution? my brother would probably say so. he’s always been amazing at solving rubik’s cubes. what a freaking weirdo. but I love him! i can never seem to solve these things. there is always that one piece. i’ve heard l

addictions are hard to kick. especially when it resides in your heart… and even when you know it may or may not be bad for you… but, so is bacon. gross. also, who was the jerk face that decided all addictions are bad? as far as i can tell, that’s false. when i started this series, the only thing in my brain was “why?” why am i so addicted to someone who clearly, in my perception at the time, just wanted to play a game? why did i allow that to happen? you know why? because you

the setbacks come and go. i’m not a fan of them coming, but it’s even harder to watch them go sometimes. you get used to someone else controlling your heart. it’s. just. so. much. easier that way. when someone else controls it, you can sit back and blame them for every undesirable thing that happens in your life. but when those ties are cut, you realize the entire time that you put yourself in that whole “i know slamming my finger in this car door is going to hurt, but i’m go

now that i have all of the sugar-coated trauma out of the way i can start recognizing what i have not fully understood until this point and start learning what to do with it... aaaaaahhhhh... the fuckery that we refer to as love... i'm clearly addicted to it. i don't feel like it's necessarily a negative addiction. and i am not looking to change that; however, i am definitely changing how i handle it and how i allow it to affect me. they say sometimes people only stay in yo

i'm naturally a joyful girl... but, just when i thought my heart had been healed, she spoke up to remind me that I still have more work to do. she does this every. single. time. this was a dark period for me. very dark. i struggled with way too much drinking and ridiculously challenging withdrawals from prescription medication. the combination of this, paired with my inability to move past what i perceived, at the time, as being treated like a toy, made my brain decide that t

so, there's this girl... she's never realized how amazing and beautiful she is. that's just one of the things i find so endearing about her. she was also very hard on the outside... walls covered every square inch of her heart. she tries, never fully succeeding at tearing them down. when the distance between us started, i felt like my heart was exiting my chest cavity in a pretty violent way. it was the weirdest feeling i've ever had. i never recognized how much she tru