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Be Brave Studio
Paint Wisdom Exhibition
Following the above link to the Exhibition Catalogue & artist interview
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Still Becoming
Self-knowledge, Aging, and Artistic identity
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My body, my hands, my history, are part of the materials. Every brushstroke, every stitch, every fingerprint in clay carries a story, an echo. Aging is not a loss to my creative practice, but a deepening. It enriches my work, adding layers of memory, quiet magic, and ritual.
The moon is a central figure in this body of work. She reminds me that we are always in motion, waxing, waning, shifting through phases. Like her, I have changed shape with time. Through this work, I invite the viewer to witness that transformation, to sit with the strangeness of becoming, the loss, the wonder, the beauty in what has changed and what is hidden.
My creative practice is not merely expression; it is an invocation. It is how I stay connected to what’s real, what’s raw, and what’s sacred. I’m not here to present a polished version of myself. I’m here to honor the messy, magical, sovereign process of becoming.
Still Becoming
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I am aging,
sixty moons and more have marked my sky,
each one tugging gently
at the tides beneath my skin.
My hands,
stained with paint,
needle-pricked and calloused,
carry the hush of late-night making,
the weight of stories
stitched in silence.
Clay warms beneath my fingers,
soft as memory.
My brush still moves with purpose,
slower now,
more deliberate,
like the moon in her fullness:
unhurried, unapologetic.
I have widened,
weathered, body and heart,
learned the sacred shape of long-lived.
But inside,
I remain unchanged.
A steady ember, fierce and quiet,
rooted in the deep knowing of myself.
I no longer reach for who I was.
I rest in who I am.
Art holds me,
a vessel, a mirror, a kind of prayer.
It is the thread between what was
and what’s still unfolding.
Through it,
I remember:
I am not fading.
I am still becoming.
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Time & Magic series 1
Time and ritual, worn tactile surfaces, and unexpected distortions create an otherworldly space, moonlight shifting over time, a feeling of deep respect, love, and awe for something sacred.
These landscapes are portals, grounded in nature, touched by the mystical presence of the moon. Each hand-embellished moon anchors the work in themes of time, ritual, and quiet magic. The moon becomes a symbol of cycles, memories, and the unseen forces that shape the land and my spirit.
Through layered paint and tactile details, I invite the viewer into a space where reality and reverence meet, where the landscape is not just a place, but a feeling, a story, a spell.
Space Between
12” x 12” Linen Paper
Acrylic Mediums
Paper Clay
Hand Stitched Embellishment
Shifting Horizons
12” x 12” Linen Paper
Acrylic Mediums
Paper Clay
Hand Stitched Embellishment
Tides of Time
12” x 12” Linen Paper
Acrylic Mediums
Paper Clay
Hand Stitched Embellishment
Whispers
12” x 12” Linen Paper
Acrylic Mediums
Paper Clay
Hand Stitched Embellishment
Embrace of Self Sovereignty series 2
This series explores the vulnerability and power held within a hug. Each moonlit, masked embrace becomes a symbol of both connection and boundary, an intimate act that asks: how do we hold others without losing ourselves?
Through these images, I reflect on sovereignty as an emotional and embodied state, rooted in self-respect, tenderness, and the conscious choice to connect. These are not just hugs, but portraits of healing, wholeness, and the quiet strength found in being both soft and sovereign.
Sovereign Roots
24" x 24" Stretched Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Hand Stitched Embellishment
Sovereign Companionship
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24" x 24" Stretched Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Hand Stitched Embellishment
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Sovereign Intimacy
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24" 24" Stretched Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Hand Stitched Embellishment
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Lunar Lovelies & The Stranger Within series 3
The Lunar Lovelies are a trio of art dolls, Lunara, Elara, and Mystara, each embodying a different facet of feminine lunar wisdom, and the mysterious presence of the Stranger Within.
Together, they form a lunar lineage, a sisterhood for those reclaiming their inner wildness, intuition, and emotional truth. These dolls are not passive objects; they are companions, mirrors, and guides. They carry the wisdom of cycles, the courage of the unseen, and the tender power of self-remembrance.
The Lunar Lovelies & the Stranger Within invite viewers to slow down, to feel more deeply, and to welcome every part of themselves, especially the ones they’ve been taught to hide.
Lunara
20" Assemblage of Multimedium
Paper Clay
Acrylic Paint
Wool
Embellishment
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Lunara, shaped in the glow of the waning moon, is the witness and the quiet holder of truth. She listens to what is unspoken and teaches the strength of softness.
Lunara was created, born under the first full moon of spring. No one knows quite where she came from, only that she appeared with braided hair and a tiny moon placed upon her chest.
They say she listens to dreams while others sleep. At dawn, she tells their stories in whispers to the stranger within. A guardian of cycles, a keeper of quiet magic, Lunara reminds us that the light always returns.
She walks with the Stranger Within, the part of us we bury, mask, or forget. The awkward child, the weeping one, the wild one who doesn’t belong. Lunara does not flinch. She offers her hands, her stillness, her presence. She reminds us that to be whole is to hold it all, the grief and the grace, the raw and the radiant.
Lunara is not a doll. She is a sentinel. A guide. A reminder that your strangeness maybe your superpower.
Elara
20" Assemblage of Multimedium
Paper Clay
Acrylic Paint
Wool
Embellishment
Elara, born beneath the dark new moon, moves through thresholds and in-between spaces. She offers companionship to the exiled self and reminds us that all beginnings start in shadow.
Elara was shaped beneath the new moon, when the sky is dark and quiet and full of becoming. She carries the energy of beginnings, as with the snake she sheds the old and transforms into something new. Deeply and slowly, she dances in the moonlight the way one does after loss or silence.
She is drawn to the in-between places, doorways, dusk, old paths overgrown with weeds. She listens not just for what is said, but for what is withheld. She knows that what we avoid often holds the key to who we are becoming.
The Stranger Within lives close to Elara. Sometimes they trade masks. Sometimes they sit in silence together. Elara teaches that the stranger is not something to fix or banish, but to know like a lost sister, long exiled, just as the serpent can the stranger brings about fear
Elara is not a doll; she is a seer; she belongs fully to herself. She offers no answers, only a kind of light that helps you see what’s already there.
Mystara
20" Assemblage of Multimedium
Paper Clay
Acrylic Paint
Wool
Embellishment
Mystara, cloaked in the crimson light of the blood moon, is the keeper of ritual and deep magic. She embraces the stranger not as another, but as a sacred twin.
Mystra arrived under a blood moon, red and full and trembling with old power. She is the keeper of movement, intuition, and the secrets we only find when we dare to wander far from certainty.
Mystra doesn’t speak in words. Her language is gesture, shadow, scent, she leaves behind trails of ash and flower petals, offerings that feel like déjà vu. She is the ritual-maker, the one who remembers the forgotten ceremonies of the self: how to return, how to release, how to rise.
The Stranger Within is not a visitor to Mystra. It is her twin. Whispering dreams and warnings as they tiptoe through the garden. She teaches that the stranger is not something to meet once but again and again, each time you look deeper.
Mystra is not a doll, she is a spell, subtle, steady, undeniable. She is a protector of transformation. In her presence, you don’t need to be understood. You only need to remember who you were before you forgot.
Offering and Reflection series 4
Inspired by Italy, the Greek and Roman goddesses and the shifting phases of the moon, my work explores self-sovereignty through the lens of aging.
Each piece in this series is presented as a plate: a humble, domestic object transformed into a vessel of offering and reflection. Plates nourish, hold, and serve, much like women often do, but here they become altars.
Using stitched textile and layered surfaces, I place together themes of care, ritual, and resilience. The plates do not serve food, but instead hold stories, of a softness hard-earned, of strength grown quiet and steady with time.
Figures of Luna/Selene, Juno/Hera, Venus/Aphrodite, Diana/Artemis, Minerva/Athena, guide this exploration, reminding me that aging is not a loss, but a transformation. Like the moon, we change shape without losing our light.
These works are a tribute to the sovereign self, rooted, evolving, and unapologetically whole.
Luna/Selena
16" Diameter Layered Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Watercolour Paper & Paint
Felt with Embellishment
Juno/Hera
16" Diameter Layered Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Watercolour Paper & Paint
Felt with Embellishment
Venus/Aphrodite
16" Diameter Layered Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Watercolour Paper & Paint
Felt with Embellishment
Minerva/Athena
16" Diameter Layered Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Watercolour Paper & Paint
Felt with Embellishment
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