As a Washington State-based self-taught artist, my path has been anything but linear. Shaped by African American, Scottish, and Filipino heritage, I’ve navigated environments that didn’t always align with who I was, often shrinking parts of myself for others which is a quiet compromise many of us, especially women, are taught to make.

Over time, that disconnection distanced me from my creativity, and I stopped making art for myself. Returning to it on my own terms became a turning point, grounding my practice in self-trust, freedom, and an exploration of identity, intuition, and growth.

That journey eventually led me to Florence, Italy, where I expanded my technical language through oil painting and fresco workshops. Immersing myself in Renaissance traditions gave me another visual language to pull from — not to replicate the past, but to weave elements of craft, symbolism, and classical technique into my own evolving story.

At its core, my work explores identity and transformation, particularly the tension between the selves we present to the world and those we carry within.

Through portraiture and abstraction, I contrast refined, intentional imagery with freer, sometimes chaotic marks. Areas are left raw, obscured, exposed, or unresolved. Rather than treating imperfection as something to correct, I use it as evidence of becoming—a visual language for growth, contradiction, intuition, and ongoing self-discovery.

THE DESIGNER.

Alongside my work as a painter, I am a commercial and residential interior designer with a BAA in Interior Design from Bellevue College’s CIDA-accredited program, after beginning my studies at Cornish College of the Arts.

I approach design as more than an exercise in aesthetics or function. I’m interested in how environments communicate with us. How color, material, light, scale, familiarity, culture, and sensory experience influence the way we feel, behave, connect, focus, and rest within a space.

My process begins by listening closely. Clients don’t always have the language to articulate exactly what they need, and I see part of my role as finding the underlying need beneath the initial request by taking scattered ideas, observations, constraints, and emotions and translating them into a clear spatial point of view.

My background as an artist naturally shapes how I design. I value craft, experimentation, storytelling, and the small details that give an environment character. Rather than designing from a formula, I want spaces to feel specific to the people, communities, and stories they serve.

I’m particularly interested in neurodesign and neuro-inclusive environments. My own experience with neurodivergence has made me more conscious of how differently people can perceive and move through the same environment. This has pushed me to question not only whether a space looks good or functions efficiently, but how it actually feels to experience it.

For me, thoughtful design considers both the visible and invisible: beauty and function, but also sensory comfort, identity, belonging, emotion, behavior, and well-being.

Ultimately, whether I’m creating a painting or a space, I’m trying to do the same thing: understand what exists beneath the surface and give it a form people can feel.