My Story | My Journey
Photographer. Former Nomad. Life-long learner.
The short story
My ideal life is just my guy and me in a house, design-y enough to be on the cover of Dwell, filled with cats. It's somewhere in the wilderness, where I can see mountains and trees or a lake from inside. We have a detached art studio, and I do all sorts of things in there, none of which are particularly profound, but it's my space for just being with myself...my favorite person to be with besides the aforementioned guy. I have a lush and vibrant garden where I spend afternoons reading or writing and sipping iced tea with a cat at my feet; it's decaf because I'm in bed by 8:30 pm.
When I feel social, I host friends or groups in my studio, and we do landscape paintings or expressive self-portraits and stories about life. We always have snacks. The day ends just the two of us, cats still afoot, on the back patio under string lights, with Billie Holiday playing from somewhere.
Simple, peaceful, and introspective.
Admittedly, my real life is some version of this already. I'm a former nomad, photographer, multidisciplinary artist, and teacher. I've shared this life with my partner of seventeen years, and there are always cats at my feet.
I have been coping with life and processing emotions through self-expression: writing, painting, photography, and listening to music (with cats at my feet) for my entire life. I believe many of us probably have, but when guided and directed, this practice can be transformative for our health and well-being.
I create guided experiences that focus on self-expression/exploration through the use of creative arts and outdoor recreation that help to enhance self-awareness, self-confidence, emotional and assertive communication, empathy, and more.
I'm so glad you're here.
The Long Story
Living as a nomad.
Making my own way.
The need to create.
I come from entrepreneurs, two loving parents who sought to make their own way in the world. I was taught that hard work and work ethic were paramount for good character. And that good character was all anyone could really own that was worth a damn. These values were instilled in me not because my parents took a particular interest in teaching them but because they lived them -- hard, through, and through. They worked hard, with their bodies and hands, for everything we had, and what we had wasn’t much. They were the kind of entrepreneurs who did it anyway because the alternative wasn’t their character. Through ambitious and proud eyes, I watched and absorbed the sense of ownership and freedom they took over their lives.
When my undergrad study took me in the direction of teaching, I questioned it and chose an integrative studies degree instead. I needed ownership and freedom over my options, pursuing studio art, psychology, AND business management. After graduating with my Bachelor's degree from Kent State University, I immediately started my own business. For the following twelve years, I ran that business with the help of my partner photographer and husband, Justin. We photographed hundreds of weddings and hundreds more families and individuals. Storytelling was always the driver for me. For years as a wedding photographer, I grappled hard with the tension between wedding trends and honest, documentary storytelling. I tried to find a balance between the two; to keep myself in good character and my clients happy.
Here in the weird middle of my story, I embarked on a unique personal journey. In 2016, my husband and I downsized, sold most of our belongings, and left the house we'd lived in for eleven years to join the tiny living movement. Not only would we live tiny with a handful of cats, but we would also live nomadically. We yearned for a connection to the outdoors and a life beyond the status quo. We explored the Western United States for three years from a combination of travel trailers and tow vehicles while keeping a stationary 100 square foot renovated, vintage motorhome as our home base in Ohio. It was character-building. We lived in some of the most beautiful places in the US and worked, most days, in less than sixty square feet. The whole experience was an act of intentionally uncomfortable self-examination: the solitude, the stillness, the movement, the inter-workings of life in a tiny space. The freedom in my days was all-consuming at times, deciding where to go, when to go, to belong nowhere, and yet feel so connected to the earth, unbound.
Living this way brought more stress and anxiety than one might think, which led me to get really honest about what I needed and wanted for my life. I was torn between two worlds, one of abundance and security and one of wild idleness, beauty, and freedom. The desire for security and stability led us to settle back into a home in late 2019 with all intentions of continuing to travel but not living on the road any longer.
And then the pandemic came.
I began a Master's program at my alma mater to earn a liberal studies degree to go on the shelf with the one I already had. It has always been hard to describe my affinity for the Liberal Arts, and I have always felt compelled not to be confined by the parameters of specific fields of study. Studying painting and psychology, or gender roles and health coaching, seemed the only way to fully grasp how I would use this information in the world, my way. In my last year of graduate school, sitting in a Human Development and Family Studies course in Family Life Education, I saw all of these threads finally weave together.
My work focuses on the intersections and connections between outdoor recreation, creative self-expression/self-exploration, and emotional well-being with a basis in social-emotional learning pedagogy and andragogy, specifically enhancing self-awareness, self-confidence, emotional and assertive communication, and empathy.
After years of living rootless, lusting for the next destination or the next chapter in a new place, in the spring of 2022, I began allowing my roots to grow back into my home community. I rented a tiny art studio in a downtown artist’s loft and I’m embarking on a new journey— connecting with my local art community, and creating in my own space! I’m so excited, and I'm so glad you've found your way here.