Studio Update: What I’m Growing (and What’s Dying Off)

In the thick of it.

The brushes don’t lie. Some are clean, others are stained with weeks of choices—colors I kept, colors I covered. The palette is a living map of everything I’ve tried, scrapped, and layered again. This is where the real work happens—not in the finished piece, but in the chaos of becoming. In the studio, I’m growing, shedding, and starting over—sometimes all at once.

There’s something about May—it’s not quite spring anymore, not quite summer. Everything’s in motion. Some things are blooming wildly, and others are fading before they ever fully arrived.

Honestly? My studio feels the same way.

This is the season of sorting: what’s staying, what’s shedding, and what ideas are quietly composting in the background, waiting to become something else.

What I’m Growing

Right now, I’m building toward something big—a protest portrait that’s been simmering in the back of my mind for months. It’ll take everything I’ve got: rage, restraint, symbolism, subtlety, and zero tolerance for bullshit.

But even in the heaviness, I’m finding myself drawn back to the small moments. The quiet rebellions.

Paintings like Underfoot: Autumn’s Boroughs and Meditation remind me that there is still power in softness, still fire in the ordinary. I’ve also been refining my Beauty in Decay: Botanicals collection, letting each piece expand this idea that decay isn’t the end—it’s the transformation.

I’m building layers. Not just on canvas, but in the stories I want to tell.

What I’m Letting Go Of

This month I scrapped two paintings. They weren’t bad—but they weren’t honest. I’m learning that if a piece doesn’t feel like it’s pulling from the marrow, it probably won’t hold up over time.

I’m also letting go of the idea that everything has to be polished before it's shared. There’s beauty in the process. There’s connection in the mess.

What’s Shifting

As I lean deeper into the protest work and let my studio reflect the world outside—chaotic, unjust, alive—I’m finding new symbols rising to the surface: frayed flags, false idols, stained linen, wilted glamour.

The Trump portrait is starting to take form in my mind. It’s not just about him—it’s about what we’ve let rot beneath the surface. Memorial Day will tie in, too. The symbols of remembrance, the performative patriotism, the collective forgetting… It’s all ripe for reclamation.

Where I’m Headed

Right now, I’m holding space for both rage and rest. For overgrown beauty and clean breaks. For mourning and momentum. The studio is where I get to metabolize the world—one brushstroke at a time.

And if you’re also in a season of not knowing what’s next, but trusting the work anyway—then you’re not alone. You’re in it with me.