I am an independent visual artist working out of Boston, MA. I was born and grew up in Portland, OR and went to school at Concordia University Portland to earn my bachelors in Social Work. After graduating, I was hired on at Lines for Life and worked for 2 years as a crisis intervention specialist, answering calls on local and national crisis and suicide prevention hotlines. During this time I applied to various schools on the East coast to earn my masters in social work and experience living in a new place. I got into Boston University and moved across the country with my roommate, Faith, deciding to deffer my start date for a year to give me time to settle in to the new city. In December 2021 I decided not to go back to school and instead pursue art as a career.
A little more about my story and experience through 2020:
TW: Suicide
I launched this website at the start of 2022 to begin selling my artwork online. I have always been very creative, loving to color and decorate things as I grew up, focusing more on drawing and painting as a hobby throughout high school, college and my previous job.
I worked at a company that runs various mental health and suicide prevention hotlines throughout Oregon, answering calls and offering crisis counseling. As I started this job as an intern in January 2020, my world along with everyone else’s flipped upside-down. Starting with the announcement of my university’s closure in February, with quarantine quickly following.
For me this meant adding courses in order to move up my graduation date and doubling up on internship hours. I want to acknowledge that this is my story, that it was overwhelming, emotional and exhausting. It was also very privileged, with friends and family’s support and no worry about how to pay rent or buy groceries. I am incredibly grateful for this.
Grief feels like the right word to describe this time. Grief for my friends and professors, for their experiences as the University shutdown. And grief for the people I talked to on the lines. Grief that at the end of the day I could remember a small taste of their pain, sadness, anger through empathy but couldn’t keep track of their names. Grief for the sheer amount of people suffering and the fact that I would never have the capacity to sit with each one of them. And finally the grief that comes from moving forward, moving from a University that had become such a big part of my world.
I want to again acknowledge the privilege that I still held in this time, that my grief was not for a person passing.
In January 2020 my new year’s resolution had been to journal each day as well as start counseling. But as I attended classes, worked and did my internship, each of these became one more thing. Without the patience or energy for continuing to journal and attend counseling, I switched to something that felt much more manageable.
Each day I would write a list of 10 things I was grateful for, things that were happy or I found beautiful. Anything from moments with my roommates to a delicious dinner to a magnolia flower.
With the darkness of winter and the pain of a community and world falling apart, magnolia trees brought the hope and resilience of Spring.
I think that often core memories are attached to shockingly painful or joyful moments. A core memory attached to this time was crying alone in my car on my way to the crisis lines. But more specifically, staring at the magnolia trees beginning to bloom on the side of the road as I drove.
As with many flowers and trees, the meaning and symbolism of magnolia trees is dependent on the culture and time period that you look at. Specific to Magnolia trees are their history and longevity. Fossils from magnolia trees have been found and are believed to have existed 36-58 million years ago. The trees are pollinated by beetles as bees did not exist until later. Due to a changing climate and geological conditions, magnolias are tough, hard flowers. Because of this feature, magnolia flowers represent endurance and perseverance.
https://gardenerdy.com/magnolia-flower-meaning/
https://www.gardenguides.com/13404291-the-symbolism-of-the-magnolia-flower.html
Reading about the meaning and history of magnolias became one of those serendipitous moments. To find hope in nature during such a painful time, but then also realize that the tree I had focused on was such a beautiful embodiment of survival through change.
The lists I had created to draw my attention back to hope and beauty began to translate into my drawings and paintings. The magnolia tattoo on my arm reminds me of the beauty and perseverance during the first months of quarantine, school closure and crisis counseling.
Part of why I tell this story is because of the way that I connect and feel seen through the magnolia drawing. Connection and helping someone feel seen were what enabled me to have the best conversations on the crisis lines, and what I continue to do by creating artwork with people.