Ever since I can remember, I wanted to draw like my dad. I would take my drawings of feathers, faces, beaches lit by moonlight, and other subjects that I loved to my dad. He would always exclaim proudly, "That's great!” But then he would say, “Now add more detail! Shade this, shade that! More detail, more detail!" No matter how finished I thought I was, dad taught me there was always room for improvement. There was always more to learn. I stepped into the Visual Arts Center of Tidewater Community College in 2009 and took my first-ever art class since elementary school. The professor went over a list of required materials and I heard words I’d never heard before in my life: Bristol paper? Drawing board? Kneaded eraser? All I had ever known were Crayola colored pencils, Sharpies, and Dollar Tree sketchbooks. It was then that I realized — just as my dad had taught me before — that I had ever more to discover and learn to further my art. Fast forward to Spring 2015 and I graduated with my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from ODU with a whole new arsenal of art supplies and a new vision. My art took on a huge transformation. No longer an academic student of art, I am now an art student of Spirit and our beautiful natural universe. I have found my purpose is to bring the beauty of art to the forefront of society, to heal people through the amazing process of creating and show that no matter what we put each other through, there will always be beauty and light in the dark. Artist Statement Through the marriage of multiple mediums ranging from acrylic paint, watercolors, gel ink and colored pencils, from an equally prolific range of surfaces such as wood, illustration/watercolor boards and black paper, I seek to delve within the blurred worlds of light and dark. With the inspiration of previous prominent artists Susan Seddon-Boulet (1941-1997) and Josephine Walls (1947 – Present), I am able to explore natural divine themes through a highly vibrant color scheme (Walls) and the sacred feminine (Seddon-Boulet).