Once upon a time, in the great, sprawling city of Los Angeles, lived a marginally unhinged artist, and more than anything, she wanted to be admired.
(Okay, so it’s me. The artist is me.)
Sorry, that was hard to admit using first-person.
Ahem.
I made paintings that anyone could appreciate: solemn nudes, bonsai trees, Paris in the rain.
Every day, I sat hunched over my easel, gripping a tiny brush, agonizing over every stroke. My perfectionism was pathological.
“You’re so expressive,” people would say when they saw my work. "A free spirit." I would smile, awash with relief. I was glad they thought so.
This went on for many years. Every day, I honed my craft. Day in, day out, this was my life, and it was enough.
Until one day. A series of events dismantled me down to my atoms (this is a story for another day), and I found myself in a deep, dark night of the soul. Illusions dissolved, blind spots revealed, I saw myself for the first time. And, to my abject horror:
I was not expressive.
I was not a free spirit.
I was a work horse in a beret.
But, oh! How I was meant to be barefoot in a stream, with perpetually calloused hands and a bleeding heart. How I longed to be wild, unfettered! To create all the paintings that haunted me, to give life to the phantom images that filled my mind. The entrails of a flower, the elegant roar of a tsunami, the gravity of unadulterated joy.
I longed for God, for wonder, for awe.
I longed for courage.
With every passing day, I grew more desperate to hear the sound of my true voice, to feel the rhythm of my unsullied thoughts. I wanted to meet her—my true self. I wanted to be her.
But there I was, in the belly of that voracious city, amidst its noise of “not enough”, dragging my cowardice around like a soiled blanky, terminally afraid of what I might become.
I became a transformation junkie: epic quests, psychedelics, yoga, spiritual books, a library of notebooks filled with self-flagellating truth, fasting. I stopped using social media. I got on the hamster wheel of personal growth.
But, despite how I tried, I could not break free from the confines I had built with my own two hands. I could not let go.
Eventually, it became unbearable.
And in the winter of 2020, just weeks before the world went into lockdown, I made a decision that changed everything. With my husband and a new puppy, I moved to a little cabin, deep in the woods.
Here, I found home.
Slowly, the earth worked on me, sloughing off my plastic coating, revealing the rough, wet stone beneath. My mind quieted. Life slowed, my thoughts slowed. I learned to be generous with the moment. I began to understand.
I stopped wanting admiration. I began to crave oneness.
In time, I found my way back to art. My paintings began to shake themselves loose, to show signs of life, to breathe. Then, all at once, they began to speak.
Today, I am learning how to listen. To the paintings, to the soil, to the spaces between words. I’m learning what it feels like to fall in love with my work.
Without further ado, welcome to feral but friendly.
I’m glad we’ve found each other.
In this newsletter, I talk about art, creativity and the dogged pursuit of connection: with humans, with nature, and with every mundane, ecstatic, terrifying moment.
I also talk about Scales, a project I’ve been working on over the course of two years with my husband & family, where we create & distribute ten thousand artworks for free. It’s an experiment in “radical generosity”, an odyssey fraught with obstacles, revelations, and a steady diet of humble pie. IYKYK
But, at the end of the day, I’m just like you: a human trying to figure it out.
I’m deeply flawed. My mind is like ten thousand colorful balloons swirling fiercely in a tornado. But every so often, I am able to pick one out from the mess and hand it to you.
Much of what I write describes the paintings that I create from prompts submitted to me by this community for the Scales project.
These prompts are stories, poems, and experiences from you that I take into the studio, and use as the basis for my work. More than simply creating a painting, my goal is real connection and collaboration.
I bring you into the studio with me virtually while I’m creating the work, and as the image unfolds, we talk about it, sharing wisdom by way of osmosis.
Also, I can’t quite explain how it works, but these stories & paintings usually bleed into my real life, as if the universe arranges circumstances and events to enhance my understanding. Some seriously spooky action at a distance.
Here are a couple examples of prompt painting newsletters:
Here’s what people have to say about the process:
If you want to submit a prompt, become a paid subscriber.
By subscribing, you'll receive regular updates on my latest artwork, personal reflections, and stories from my journey. Paid subscribers allow me to spend more time on art and less time literally stacking wood.
Free Subscription:
-Access to my best writing
Paid Subscription ($5/month):
- The first 100 paid subscribers will have the opportunity to Submit a Prompt for a Painting and work 1/1 with me to create it (not required, but an option for the inspired)
- Full access to all content, including hot takes about nature, culture, technology, and my life in the woods
- the occasional supremely bad poem
Patron Level Subscription ($300/year):
- All of the above, plus a signed print of your prompt painting when it has been completed.
I agree: social media is kinda sorta evil.
Alas, for me, it is a necessary one.
Let’s connect.
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wonderful + i love you. so happy to be here 🖤