What do you do, and why do you do it? 

I am a writer and illustrator. I helped start East Lake Language and Arts (ELLA Library), which has been going for about ten years now, sharing art and story as a means of connection—picture books, art, play, connections with children and neighbors, parties, story invitations, all that. I taught and played and shared stories. Art for me really grows out of relationships, and storytelling is a language and art that I love. 

When COVID hit, I really leaned on studio time in earnest. I spent so much time over the years with books and stories, especially spending a lot of time in picture books, and imagining the different worlds that each story shares and invites us into, and that’s what drove me into the studio to start creating my own.

What was a class, a conversation, or an art work you made at Covenant that still impacts you today?

Kayb Carpenter, one of my art professors, and I spent a lot of time talking about the theology of the body, celebrating the goodness of materiality or my own body and really any body. That shaped my curiosity around the image of God, and those conversations walk with me on a daily basis in terms of the way I speak about and look at my own body or treat other bodied humans. I think it also really taught me the lavishness of creation and shaped the way I see the world and borrow its own levity and play. 

Two things I hear from students is that art isn’t lucrative or you can’t make a living off of art and that they don’t want to face creative burnout. How do you deal with these sorts of mainstream ideas as a working artist? 

Oh, that’s so interesting to put those two questions together because if they aren’t dealt with they will combine into this thing that is absolutely stilling. Honestly a book that is really foundational for my practice is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It helped me define those roadblocks to creativity and push me through it. Something I constantly remind myself is that if we are drawn to this artistic space there is something going on that needs our attentiveness. I believe you can give yourself to this work whether it’s your “job” or not and really tend to the work. 

It took me a long time to create for children because I thought my work needed to be serious, but there was something in the illustration world that kept calling me. I tried to make serious work but kept ending up drawing cute animals with my kids, until I started to get curious and listen to that urge.  The more I have listened to that creative process the more it has yielded a lot of personal healing. I thought the animal-play was separate from my work, but eventually it started to make sense in my practice, and now it’s at the core of my vocation. In some ways ignoring our artistic passions diminishes us because we aren’t exploring the particular person God created us to be. I mean what even is lucrative? For me, it is looking back and seeing something relational. Maybe our calling is delighting in short moments—playing music in the living room, reading a good book, cooking a good meal, etc. For me, it was noticing how much I loved the picturebooks and delighted in badgers and mushrooms and flamingos. And I did not make much money off that for a long time, but playing with my neighbors and my kids and these animals brought me so much life. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves but there is a place between inspiration and discipline, but when you hit those roadblocks the best thing is to just keep walking. Find a way to play with it, slow down, notice the delight, get your butt in the chair, go for a walk, call a friend, then just keep walking, making, living.

If you could give any advice to a current art student at Covenant, what would it be? 

Just to listen. I think Mary Oliver’s words are pay attention, be astonished, and then go tell about it. I truly think that looking carefully and listening to anything in the cosmos is a good practice because of what happens when we pay attention and see God's divinity around us. Listen to your body, the community around you, the old poets, the wind, anything because If you quiet yourself enough you can hear yourself and a pulsing, imaginative song. 

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