ART
Ari and the Oak Trees
Water Color - 2025
Lost in the folds of his ever-changing skin, I surrendered to my first watercolor painting. A rooster's gaze is unlike any other I've known. It carries an awareness of every sound, every movement, every shift. And when that attention settles on you, time pauses. Innately protective, with an ancient life force, Ari became the steady source that pulled me back to life day after day as we painted together. Throughout 2025, I found myself navigating one of the most distressing seasons of my life. What began as an attempt by my landlords to price gouge tenants after the Palisades Fire slowly unraveled into ongoing harassment and scary intimidation tactics that left me questioning my sense of safety and, at times, my own worth. Leaving wasn't simple. My family of animals depended on me and I had invested significant time and money into created a sanctuary there. So I stayed and fought through my first legal battle, determined to get us somewhere safe by it's end with help to do so. Whenever the weight of it all became too much, I carried my paints outside and sat between three old oak trees, with Ari resting in my lap. Instead of reacting emotionally, as my landlords often seemed to expect, I painted. Session after session, the emotion slowly settled. What had felt tangled became clear. Each time I stood back up, I knew my next step. The oak trees formed a loving aura around us that nothing could penetrate. I felt held by them just as deeply as I felt held by Ari. He did for me what he does for his flock every single day. He protected me, and in a way he carried us through the uncertain. We won our year-long legal battle, relocated with every member of our animal family, and found a home filled with more peace and love than I could have imagined. Every painting session lasted until I reached a place of surrender. Eventually, there was no lawsuit. No fear. No future to solve. There was only Ari. The warmth of the sun. The rustling of the oak leaves. The folds of his skin. The colors. The stillness. Looking back, 2025 became one of the most transformative years of my life. Not because it was easy, but because it taught me to recognize the life force quietly pulling me forward through the unwavering gaze of my rooster. Ari knew his role in all of this. He would excitedly report for duty each day, hopping onto my legs and settling into the quiet rhythm we shared. This painting will forever remind me that even when the world around us is falling apart, there is another place we can choose to inhabit—a place where only what truly matters remains. A place where we are protected.
One last look before departure
Pepper's Piercing Peer
Water Color - 2026
Pepper always seemed content to remain on the outskirts. Some chickens I bond with the moment our eyes meet. Pepper was different. The first time I truly felt our connection was about two weeks after adopting her. A hawk had flown overhead and she ran straight beneath my arms for safety. That moment melted me. She quickly went back to pretending we weren't especially close, but I knew what I knew. In that brief moment of vulnerability, she had revealed the deepest part of herself. She trusted that I would keep her safe. For the following year, she still kept me at arm's length, despite being raised exactly like my other girls. But every so often she'd look up at me, and her gaze would almost knock me off my feet. Even from several feet away, it felt as though a portal opened between us. Her eye seemed impossibly close, inviting me to fall completely into it. One morning, Pepper developed a respiratory infection and needed to be taken to the veterinarian. She accepted the whole experience with remarkable grace—far more than at least half of my other girls would have. Once she was in my arms, she was nothing but sweetness. The veterinarian prescribed two weeks of antibiotics, twice-daily nebulizer treatments, and a calm environment to recover in. So Pepper came inside to live with me. Not long afterward, I felt watercolor tugging at my heart for the first time since painting Ari. I couldn't find my old supplies—they were buried somewhere beneath the remaining boxes from my move—so I drove to the art store and bought everything again. I know by now that when inspiration arrives, it's worthy of being followed. Day after day, Pepper perched beside me while I painted. She preened. She napped. She chatted. She quietly observed. Somewhere along the way, we both fell completely into one another. Painting these intimate portraits has taught me something I never expected. The longer I study every feather, every reflection, every subtle shift in expression, the more impossible it becomes to see a chicken as one of the masses. They become entirely themselves. Somewhere along the way, Pepper opened her heart to me completely. There she was. It seems all Miss Pepper ever needed was to know she was truly seen and deeply respected before offering someone the gift of her trust. Somehow, that only makes me love her more. She gives her heart only after you've risen to meet her magnificence. To this day, we still share that quiet connection. She's never the first to rush toward me or demand my attention. Instead, she'll casually drift closer, pretending she isn't walking my way at all. I pretend not to notice. She keeps inching nearer until she's standing beside my leg, stretching out her neck and looking up at me, asking to be picked up and cuddled. I like to think that every time we meet there, we're stepping back into the same little portal we discovered while painting together.
BB's Boundless Beauty
Colored Pencil - 2025
There was something about BB's eyes that felt impossibly vast. Looking into them was like falling into an ocean whose depths I could never quite reach. I wasn't the only one who experienced it. Someone else who loved her described the very same feeling. There was simply something about BB's eyes. I began this drawing while I was still working at the facility where she lived, in the middle of a year-and-a-half battle to secure proper care for the horses. Amid all the advocacy, there were small moments that helped me surface again. Moments that softened me. Moments that returned me to my compass. BB's eyes were one of those places. I reached the point of drawing her actual eye... and stopped. The portrait sat unfinished for nearly two years. But during that time, I never stopped studying her. I continued falling into her eyes, seeing something new each day. The more I saw, the more impossible it felt to draw them. How could I translate something I couldn't even understand? Every time I thought I finally saw her clearly, another layer revealed itself. Then her body began to fail. She was receiving every treatment and every bit of specialized care we could offer, but because she was the first horse I had ever loved through the end of life, I didn't recognize where we had arrived. I truly believed there would be another treatment, another plan, another chance. Instead, I was gently shown that the kindest thing left to give her was goodbye. I wasn't ready. I had always imagined I'd buy a property and bring all five horses home before any of them passed. I believed our little family would stay intact until I had finally figured everything out. But it was too much to ask of her to stay, so I asked the vet for one more week, and together we prepared for her final day. That week, she ate more watermelons, carrots, and horse cookies than I could possibly count. I knew it was finally time to draw her eye. Ready or not. The only other option was leaving it blank forever. Through tears and long hours of quiet observation, I drew what I could. Somewhere along the way, I realized that what I was looking at existed far beyond my ability to understand. And that perhaps understanding had never been the point. Experiencing her was. I finished the drawing having finally accepted that BB was never meant to be fully understood, but rather, fully experienced. And I believe that was her gift—to anyone willing to dive with her into the boundless beauty of her gaze.
Faith
Colored Pencil - 2023
The day I was hired as a "mucker" at what I believed was a luxury mental health facility with a thriving equine therapy program, I practically skipped toward the horse pen. I was so excited to be around horses again. I had no idea that behind those gates stood five neglected and dying senior horses. Three of them walked over to greet me—Faith, BB, and Star. Bridget and Mandu quietly remained behind. Faith approached me like a beam of light. Her big doe eyes, gentle face, and ears pointed forward carried a warmth that seemed untouched by the hardship she had endured. What I didn't yet know was that these horses had gone more than a year without consistent daily care. They weren't reliably fed. Hadn't received any veterinary, dental, or farrier care. Nursing staff tossed hay over the fence whenever there was hay available. That was the extent of it. Faith had a severely damaged tooth that had gone untreated for so long she could barely eat. She was painfully thin. Skin and bone. And yet... she still radiated love. She was already named Faith before I met her. A name so fitting. She is the embodiment of faith itself. When I think of Faith now, I don't picture suffering. I picture a great sun, still shining with warmth despite a world that had given her every reason to give up. She stood there day after day watching people come and go, never knowing if relief would ever arrive. Yet when she walked toward me that first morning, this is what I saw. She approached with as much love as Love itself. I fought to get her the veterinary and dental care she desperately needed. I hand-fed her mash until she slowly gained weight. Every meal felt like a sacred act. I wasn't simply feeding a starving horse. I was feeding the Faith that had somehow never left her. The faith that remained radiant through her darkest season, and continued to shine with all the warmth and life of the sun.
Becoming
Colored Pencil - 2024
I had just adopted my five horses and expanded our growing family to include chickens, stepping into a level of responsibility there was no turning back from. I emptied my savings, maxed out credit cards, borrowed money, and took out loans because I couldn't walk away from what I knew I needed to do. I left North Hollywood, built a stable for my horses in an abandoned horse pen beside a trailer, built my chicken coop, and let go of every habit that stood between me and my promise that my animals would never miss a meal. What now? The gift hidden within all of those risks was that they led me back to nature. At the time, that place was Topanga Canyon. Somehow, I found a little piece of magic at the end of a road most cars couldn't climb, surrounded by state park land and hidden from neighbors. Finally. Out of the city. The spring creeks and tadpoles that grew into frogs healed the inner child who had been taken from nature against her will, chirp by chirp. I bathed beneath the sun. I cried under moonlight and stared into the stars. I talked to the trees. I learned the rhythms of the wildlife. I felt the earth turning beneath me and flowers blooming in my heart. To steady myself through the waves of uncertainty, I drew this.It became a family portrait—a way of preserving a moment when, although the climb was far from over, impossible battles had already been won and impossible leaps had already been taken. I had this framed so the colored pencil marks and paint swatches around the edges were be hidden. Years later, when I removed it from the frame to scan it for this website, I discovered something I had completely forgotten I'd written while making it. "Through tapping into their world, and stepping into our role as guardians and caretakers, we evolve into our next paradigm of consciousness. This is what you are to do so you can translate it." Looking back now, I realize this became the compass that quietly guided every step that followed. It led me toward my work, my purpose, my relationships with animals, and ultimately toward the life I live today. This isn't simply a drawing of my family. It's a drawing of my becoming.
Prayer of Guidance
Colored Pencil - 2020
Crashing into a full-blown identity crisis brought on by the COVID shutdowns, I was finally forced to sit still and face where my life was headed—and why. By then, I had spent years pursuing acting in Los Angeles. With enough experiences behind me to begin recognizing patterns, I gathered them like little clues and started piecing them together. I was preparing to double down on acting as my career, postponing yet another round of headshots and classes until restrictions lifted. I remember speaking aloud to whatever higher force I hoped was listening. "If I'm not meant to continue down this path as an actor, please tell me now. I'll listen. I'll change course. Whatever it is. You tell me, and that's what I'll do." Of course, no immediate answer arrived. But the message had been sent. Instead of doubling down on the career I thought I wanted, I doubled down on meditation, yoga, running, and creating my vision board. I had recently finished The Artist's Way, treating it almost like scripture, and learning to trust my creative instincts rather than dismiss them. One afternoon I felt an unexpected urge to draw. I was staying with a family member at the time and asked if they had any colored pencils. They handed me a brand-new pack of ten and I dug up a black fine Sharpie. I started with one word: Trust. Then came Presence. Abundance. Love. Joy. Gratitude. One by one, the words found their place until I realized I wasn't drawing goals. I was drawing the way I wanted my life to feel. I spent hours with that piece, sitting quietly with each word, imagining them weaving together through a purpose I had not yet discovered. Looking back, I see now that I had unknowingly stumbled upon the perfect question. Not What do I want to do? But, how do I want my life to feel? Throughout those years, people often questioned why I spent so much time meditating, soul-searching, drawing, journaling, and making vision boards. Looking back now, I don't see any of it as wasted time. Those quiet hours became the foundation that allowed me to recognize my purpose when it finally arrived. Two years later, I met my horses. And the rest... is still unfolding.
I found this taped to the back of the picture frame when I went to scan it
