Some moments simply carry you away to a place free from the manmade world, free from worry, conflict or confusion, free from the past and the future. This place for me is often found in nature. I simply cannot experience anything but the present moment when I turn my face up to the suddenly warm sun, feeling the fragrant buds of spring tickling my nose and breathing in the rebirth of this joyous season. Ahhhh....spring is here!
My father used to hide under the covers with a flashlight as a little boy, exploring the world he longed to know. I've never met anyone who has read as many books as this man, and the many custom designed libraries built in the many homes he's lived in over the years can attest to that fact. As a little girl I would spend hours in the library of our first home, pacing the 70's style rug as I perused the touring mahogany shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. At one point I even made my own library cards out of construction paper and stapled pockets in the front covers of all my favorite books so the other members of my family could check them out of "the library." That's a story in and of itself. The point is, as I sit on my couch at night going back and forth between the two books I'm currently reading, I realize that my father's desire to learn more about himself and the world around him lives on in his offspring...and to me, that's a beautiful thing. I am a bottomless pit for information, always longing for more, always seeking to better myself. Thanks dad...I wouldn't want to live any other way.
Today I stood in the lobby of my apartment building, still sweating from my workout, hair pulled back in a wavy mess more resembling a nest than anything, when my fiance surprised me with flowers. It was at that moment I felt blessed....not solely on account of my extraordinary, constantly thoughtful, enormously loving partner in life, but for a lifetime of receiving flowers. My father set the bar relatively high when it comes to lavishing his daughter with trinkets of love and floral gestures. But today I was struck by the power a flower has to make a girl, even swathed in her sweaty gym clothes, feel like a lady. 
When I was 14 years old, I was given an ancient camera and the tools to make my own film while away at summer camp. As I stood in the dark room, developing the images I had chosen to capture, I discovered a powerful way to represent the world through my eye. I still have on my wall that first photo I took and developed, a black and white rendering of old canoe oars…and it still lights me up.
My passion hasn’t been consistently present, I found myself in business school instead of art school, I’ve tried to imitate what seemed like a more normal or responsible path in life…but the artist in me has always cried out, has always shaken and forced me to abandon high paying jobs, environments that didn’t inspire or support my true path, relationships that suffocated my colorful soul.
So here I am. I don’t have a plan or any idea where my art will lead me. I only know that with every click of my camera’s shutter opening and closing, with every idea that springs from my mind and splatters itself across a glossy piece of paper, with every folder filled with another 600 pictures on my computer desk top, I feel more alive.
