How Did I Get Here?

After graduate school, I was mentally and physically burnt out. The entire art scene exhausted me and so I pivoted to my other passion which was/is makeup. 

In the fall of 1996, I secured a job at a cosmetics counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Boston. Three years later, I owned and operated a niche beauty boutique while also entering the wonderful but stressful early stages of building a family. It became all too much for me. While I tend to multitask every single day, I am not, by nature, good at it. I could not and will never ‘have it all’ at the same time. This has been a bitter pill to swallow since my early thirties. But I am at peace with it now…as long as I’m producing ‘something.’

I didn’t touch a paintbrush for many, many years, unless it was to sit down with my children and bond through art. I had no desire nor a reason to create. As a mother, I was in survival mode like so many before and after me, and I simply did not have the capacity to dig deep into my brain and inner workings to create anything meaningful. My professional artist CV has a huge gaping hole in it between 1999-2023. It is what it is. 

In 2019, I began to build my beauty brand, Flyte.70, and it was there where I submerged myself into the creative process again by using photography, graphic design, makeup application, video creation and software editing. I learned the inner workings of social media…love it or hate it. I happen to do both. The camera on my iPhone became my best friend. 

Nearly twenty-five years later all it took was a move to a new home. A downsize. A place that had this very small, but very special little space that I instantly knew was going to be mine. It immediately felt like a haven, and I put dibs on it with no guilt.

In the spring of 2024, during a difficult life transition period, I began to gather hundreds of photographs I had taken the year prior. I then sat myself down and started to make some terrible work. I am almost a full year out from when I first stood in front of my easel. It initially felt as uncomfortable as getting into a cold, wet bathing suit. But once I was 'in the water,' it felt incredibly cathartic, and I finally, finally felt like myself again.