While I discovered art at a young age, in the upstairs studio of my grandmother Mary Apple's eclectic, art-filled home, it took until my life fell apart in the pandemic for me to find my way back to it.

I grew up interested in everything except for Florida. Theater, Music, Spanish, Algebra, Science, babysitting, and a special love for Sci-Fi novels filled my head. I had high ambitions for my future, involving spending at least six months of my life living in all different places - New York, Italy, and Spain only accounting for some. All of that was cut out of my life with the crisis of COVID-19. I lost my Bright Futures scholarship and moved home from college. In three months, "My Life" shrank from a monumental, futuristic thing of potential into something very small, very tactile, very present, and very, very disappointing. I was no longer choosing what to do for a major to fulfill my life's purpose. I was trying to fill my days so that they would remain - or become - some semblance of "bearable".

In the interest of finding something enjoyable to do, I took a course on "Understanding Art" at St. Petersburg College. The love Michaela Oberlaender had for art was contagious, but the thing that captured my attention more was her absolute adoration for the life and work of her husband, Kevin Grass.

Professor Grass' Drawing I course was the first time a class moved more slowly than I did, instead of faster. When faced with drawing everyday objects, success was no longer reliant on how quickly I could memorize something, or how meticulous my notetaking was; the truly most impactful thing was how much of my own attention I could control.

That attention wasn't wasted. These incredibly mundane objects (Styrofoam cups, teddy bears, heeled shoes) were not infinite containers soaking in all I had to give them. They returned the attention I gave them with unexpected colors and wild, organic shapes. I could see the yellow-oranges that appear in the creases of my favorite books, from where the pages reflected onto one another. I could see the thousands of variations of grays and blues on my bedroom door before I had turned on any lights. I could see the endlessly fascinating group of triangular forms, some severe, and some subtle, in the human knee.

It was through painting and close attention that I've come to love Florida for the first time. What once looked so muddy and brown now look complex and nuanced. What used to be a slab of limestone covered in mud, gators, and mosquitoes, has transformed into an absurdly unique ecosystem built on the skeletons of millions of ancient corals.

I will never not be disappointed that I can't take another art class with Professor Grass. I am so incredibly grateful to have been gifted such a pure grief: for someone who was only ever kind, concise, and encouraging towards me, and for someone who gave me such a healthy thing to do with that grief - create.

I don't always paint what I love, but what I love, I've painted. I think it's impossible to pay such close attention to something, the way you do when painting, without falling in love with it a little bit.

I would love to say I have a cohesive, consistent approach to art, but for me, the patterns usually show themselves after the fact rather than in any "plan" I had beforehand.

I find myself drawn over and over to Floridian cloudscapes, in acrylic, and portraits of the Virgin Mary, drawn from historical paintings and illustrated with all different mediums.

There tends to be a strong, if unconsciously intended, sense of melancholy in many of my portraits.

My favorite way to work is from life. I have also become accustomed to using photo references in more nostalgic works like translating family photos into paintings or charcoal pieces.

What I do Today.

Series

Portraits of Mary

Portraits of Florida

Shadow Work

Project Gardenia

Cloudscapes