Bloom Wildly

Where Women Create- And Where I’m Creating Next

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 12:42:20 -0800

Ever love a magazine so much you devour every issue the moment it arrives? For me, that magazine has always been Where Women Create. Its pages are a celebration of imagination, beautifully designed, deeply inspiring, and full of creative magic. A few months ago, I gathered my courage and submitted my own studio for consideration. To my absolute amazement, it was selected. I'm thrilled to share the spring issue with a number of incredible artists from around the world.

When my husband and I built our home on the Oregon coast, we carved out a dedicated two‑story studio, partly so I could finally have space to explore my creative work, and partly because he was tired of stepping over art supplies and projects in every room. The upstairs is where my mixed‑media pieces and long‑form projects live; the downstairs holds my computer, paper‑crafting tools, and my new love: pottery. An antique pulley system (yes, really) lets me move supplies between floors with ease and a little bit of whimsy.

For years, art was something I squeezed into the margins while building a career and raising a family. After being laid off last year, I took time to reflect on what I truly wanted next. The answer surprised me with its clarity: it’s time to build my art business, intentionally, wholeheartedly, and...Read More

Words Matter. Be Gentle.

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 22:48:32 -0800

“Your test scores weren’t very high. You should look at attending trade school, not a college or university. Have you considered becoming a mechanic or a welder?”

These words came from my high school guidance counselor after receiving my SAT score results the end of my junior year of high school. I was devastated. These words carried a ton of shame and embarrassment for a kid who was always encouraged to get a higher education and dreamed big.

I wasn’t an academic but I was always highly creative, a great problem solver and budding artist. I wanted a career where I could use my creativity. Not that welding and mechanics arn't creative but I had never shown any aptitude or interest in either discipline. Anyone who took the time to ask or to pay attention would have know about my interest and passion for art. But my counselor didn’t take the time to ask or listen. I thought she held the secret to understanding building a successful life and career path and I took her word as gospel.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Buddha

I left the meeting completely deflated. Feeling destined to a career that didn’t fit me. Limited by a belief set by someone who didn’t know me or take the time to get to know me. At that point in my life I needed someone that was on fire with possibility, a mentor with an innovative spirit to help an unconventional student, like me, that didn’t fit an academic mold. I at least needed someone that could talk me through my options and help understand what a better fit for me could be.

I didn’t go to trade school after I graduated. Or college. Or university. Instead, I took a job and soon after I got married and started a family. It took me 10...Read More

Love Lifts

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 17:40:21 -0700

After 43 years of marriage, you’d think my husband Carl and I would have it all figured out. But the truth is, we’re still learning—still growing, still discovering new ways to connect. One of the most transformative lessons came from a book by Dr. Gary Chapman, The 5 Love Languages. It introduced me to the idea that people express and receive love in five distinct ways: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch.

Carl and I speak different languages of love.

His language is acts of service. Mine is words of affirmation. I naturally want to tell him he’s doing a great job when he fixes something or helps around the house. But I’ve learned that those words, while kind, don’t necessarily fill his emotional tank. What lights him up is when I do something for him—clean his car, mow the lawn, take a task off his plate. That’s when I see his shoulders relax and his heart lift.

Carl, in turn, shows love through service. He’s less likely to hand out praise, but he’s always doing something thoughtful and practical to make my life easier. Since reading the book, I’ve come to appreciate these gestures more deeply. And when he does offer words of affirmation—which he does often—they feel especially meaningful to me.

Some of my favorite memories of Carl’s love-in-action:

He engineered a pulley system for my art studio, which has a loft and a steep ladder. He worried about me carrying supplies up and down safely, so he designed a clever system using an antique pulley, rope, and a basket. It’s one of my favorite features of the studio—thoughtful, functional, and uniquely Carl.
One Christmas, he upcycled a clock for me. He hand-painted “We love you mom” on the face and cut out photos of our three kids’ heads, pasting them to the clock hands. The little heads danced around the face at different angles, and when they aligned, it made me laugh out...Read More

Respect for all living things

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 14:14:07 -0800

I've always been a sensitive person. Even as a child, I harbored a deep sense of empathy and a strong sense of justice. I've attributed this trait primarily to my dad. He attended college during the Civil Rights Movement and I can remember him coming home from his studies and hearing his stories of injustice. I'm sure he didn't realize his 4-year old in the other room would be listening intently. He worked a full-time job and after getting off his shift, he would come home and shower, eat a quick dinner and head out for night school. He wanted to make a difference and be a positive impact on society, his dream was to be a school teacher. He made the necessary sacrifices to provide for his family while pursuing his dream and eventually becoming a teacher for a year at a small rural school with less than a dozen students, my sister and I among them.

I don't recall any of the specific stories he told but I can almost feel the conviction of his spirit even now. My mom was a patient sounding board, listening intently and offering him comfort. There were so many injustices in the mid-sixties, from the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War that he was never at a loss for causes. He often talked about the importance of civil disobedience and peaceful assembly and even at my tender age I could comprehend the gravity of these rights. He strongly believed in the importance of having civil discourse and would quote Voltaire "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it." That is pretty heavy stuff for a sensitive little soul and I think these early conversations cemented the importance of fairness and justice I've always felt.

Fairness and justice were sometimes at odds with my childhood memories. I used to love to go fishing with my dad. The night before a big fishing trip, we would liberally water the lawn and then bring out our flashlights to hunt nightcrawlers late into the evening. Those memories are...Read More

Serendipitous Connections

Sun, 03 Nov 2024 11:43:07 -0800

I graduated from high school in 1980 in a small rural town in Oregon, a county so vast it’s larger than Rhode Island and has more cows than people. In school, I did just enough to get by, often distracted and doodling on PeeChee folders when I should have been paying attention. Art was my favorite subject, and it has been my passion for as long as I can remember.

After graduation, I married my high school sweetheart, and we soon started a family. Every evening, after the kids went to bed, I would spread out my art supplies on the kitchen table, bringing to life the images that danced in my head throughout the day. Along the way, I found a few side projects that allowed me to earn some extra money while staying home with my children. My first side hustle involved painting ocean scenes on small myrtlewood plaques and magnets, which were sold to tourist shops along the Oregon coast. It was repetitive work, but it let me use my artistic skills and stay present for my family.

In 2000, I met a wonderful woman named Tina, who owned a rubber stamp business called Imagine Rubber Works. She wanted to license some of my illustrations for her stamps. We struck a deal, and I created dozens of designs for her. Part of our agreement included receiving a sample of each stamp I designed, and I still have a large drawer in my studio filled with them.

Fast forward a couple of decades and a shift to a different career path in graphic design and marketing. One day, my mom ran into Nancy, the school librarian from my high school. She mentioned that one of my stamp designs was her all-time favorite and that she wanted to get a new one since hers was worn out. My mom passed along my contact information, and I eagerly dug through my drawer of stamps. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the one she was looking for.

Last week, I visited my mom in that same little town where I graduated, and I brought along some stamps for Nancy that I thought she might like. It had been...Read More

A Little Bit of Grandma

Sat, 12 Feb 2022 10:11:33 -0800

NOTE: Since writing this blog post, I have transitioned my mixed media work to its own website, Bloom Wildly. You can see my work here.

I lost my grandma at 11. She was one of my favorite people in the world. When you lose someone that was the center of your universe at such a young age, it leaves a pretty big hole and the slightest thing can trigger a memory that brings you back.

Grandma was really creative. Her parents immigrated from Czechoslovakia and settled along with six of her father's brothers in a North Dakota homestead. That bohemian spirit ran strong and it was evident in the way she liked to party, the food she shared, the colors in her garden and the way she decorated her home. From the time I knew Grandma, her home was the former headmasters quarters of the railroad boss during the time of Japanese internment camps. Grandpa worked for the railroad and they were allowed to live there in exchange for keeping up the property.

The house was nestled in the hills outside of town, Poison Creek quietly flowing across the tracks and down the ravine. It was a tiny little place with many outbuildings that she covered with bright lime green and red paint, and surrounded with lush and colorful plants. Rounding the corner from the dusty cow trail that led to the house through the sage brush, it was truly a vision. An oasis in the middle of a desert. There was the shower room, the outhouse, the den, the water shack, and across the creek a bunk house where the prisoners used to sleep. There was no electricity or indoor bathroom, which although difficult to explain, was magical. Flickering kerosene lanterns lit the rooms where we played cribbage (and poker), listened to the coyotes howl and were tucked into bed atop her...Read More

Embracing Change

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 14:14:21 -0800

Who could have predicted when COVID hit a few years ago that life would change so drastically? Since then, my day job has transitioned to full time remote, I sold my home to downsize and moved into a rental literally half the size of my old home, and I tried to embrace the fact that I can't see my daughter (who lives in Australia) until life returns to normal.

Being sequestered for months at the beginning of the pandemic, I thought my creativity would be on high. I no longer had a work commute, spent almost all of my time at home where I was surrounded by nature and had literally no visitors to interupt my flow. That wasn't the case. Instead I struggled to turn my attention to my art. I felt stunted and uninspired. I would sit at an empty canvas or screen and wait for an idea to form. But nothing.

Then I decided I would jump into learning new techniques and that was the boost I needed to kickstart my creativity again. I took an acrylic painting class and learned that I could integrate acrylic, collage, stamping, pastel, charcoal or whatever I wanted into my art. I knew that mixed media was a category but had never considered it for myself. I preferred staying within one medium, coloring within the lines and keeping my art in organized little buckets. There was something about adding and combining mediums and allowing myself the freedom to truly play and explore that seemed to unstick my stuck.

I've been enjoying painting wild florals with many different mediums this past year. They are delightfully joyful to paint and I'm finding more joy in my life, in general. Change is constant, but embracing change seems to be the only way to navigate in these unusual times. How are you adjusting to change during the pandemic? What tips could you share to help others?

New Mixed Media Art

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 14:24:47 -0800

NOTE: Since writing this blog post, I have transitioned my mixed media work to its own website, Bloom Wildly. You can see my work here. I've been enjoying creating new mixed media art after taking a wonderful online art course. The artist helped me to see that I don't have to always color between the lines and I've been really stretching myself to have more fun playing and exploring. Here is one of my latest pieces to share.

Hope you enjoy it!

Finding the "New Normal"

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 00:06:05 -0800

NOTE: Since writing this blog post, I have transitioned my mixed media work to its own website, Bloom Wildly. You can see my work here. Everyone keeps talking about the concept of a "new normal". Since COVID-19 hit in mid-March of 2020, there has been so much fear and misinformation. We've all become so much more aware of germs and spend more time than we ever imagined bleaching countertops, disinfecting packages, working from home and keeping ourselves away from those we love.

For most people, the new normal was truly isolating. Things that we took for granted, even simple things like handshakes and hugs, become dangerous. I have a lot of interests and hobbies to keep me busy but the lack of human face-to-face interaction still created a sense of loneliness. It has since become more natural to spend time alone, but I long for the days when we can get once again get together in groups to celebrate our accomplishments and victories.

I've made a list of some of some of the things I've found helpful during this time to try to stay connected. I hope they might be helpful to you too!

Take a notepad or drawing pad with me when I go for a walk, to the beach or a river or my backyard.
Set up an art video lessons with friends and family using video chat. Sharing my love of art with others I love helps me feel more empowered to do something, anything to connect.
Listen to art podcasts to learn about other art processes and key learnings.
Take an online art class. I did this recently and awakened a whole new way of creating art combining my love of collage with more mixed media elements of acrylic and pastel, both mediums I was afraid to try in the past.
Call an old friend I haven't talked to in a while to check in.
Start a grateful journal and list at least three things I'm grateful for each day. I...Read More

Snip...snip...snip

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 21:50:06 -0700

I have been intrigued by the technique of paper cutting for years. When I was a young mother, I copied a pattern from a Country Sampler magazine and painstakingly cut out the design from a piece of tea stained calligraphy paper. I created one little heart to symbolize each of our family members, framed it and hung it on the wall of every home we rented while traveling across the country for the U.S. Coast Guard.

For the past 4 months I've been staying and working from home, sequestered, to try to stay safe from the COVID-19 pandemic. I have many hobbies so my free time has not been wasted, although I have missed the social interactions that come from occasionally leaving the house. I have had paper cutting on my list of things to try. A few weeks ago, I had some free time and decided to give it a go. Turns out I really love it. I was so inspired that I created 6 illustrations in a weekend.

I think my career in graphic design helps me to see the interconnectedness between the foreground and the background and I have really enjoyed how they are turning out. I love combining my love of graphics and my favorite quotes. I'll be adding more art to the site soon. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it!