I've spent more than fifteen years shaping visual stories as a graphic designer and art director. Through every project, every campaign, every composition, I found myself returning to the same subject: people.

But painting? I avoided it for years (and years and years). The last time I'd tried, it frustrated me endlessly, so I turned to everything else. Illustration. Fashion design. Graphic design. Digital art. Children's books. Any medium other than paint. I built a career in the visual world while keeping it at arm's length.

For years, my husband encouraged me to try again. I was stubborn, but in hindsight, I just wasn't ready. Then this past February, I actually binged a show called Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year on Prime, and something clicked. It was like a calling I didn't know I'd been waiting for.

I don't know how else to say this: it felt like coming home. Within two months, I had walked away from my career. Not impulsively, but with complete certainty. This is the thing I am supposed to do. Not the thing I chose, but the thing that chose me.

I paint portraits because people are what my gut says. When I sit down to paint, it's always a face.

Each piece I create is a one-of-one original stamped, cataloged, and accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity. I like to think of my paintings as heirlooms. Something real, from a real artist, made to be passed down.

My studio is in San Juan Capistrano, California.