Embarking on the journey of an artist isn't always a linear road, and my tale is no exception. Today, I would like to share my narrative, a winding path from hesitant artist to a full-fledged installation artist, with unexpected twists, life-changing dreams, and lot of trial and error.

Like many creatives, I can't remember when I started making art; it has always been a part of my life. However, it took me a long time to feel like I could rightfully claim the title of “artist.” No one ever told me I could be an artist. It was never presented as a viable career option; in fact, I was discouraged from pursuing art as a job. It was presented as something that should only ever be a hobby. In high school, I had a wonderful art teacher who was extremely encouraging and submitted my work to county-wide art shows. This led to my work being displayed in a museum for the first time, in a high school art exhibit at SECCA. But she was the only one who saw art as a potential career for me. My other teachers, family, and guidance counselors pushed me towards more conventional paths.

During my college years, I was focused on obtaining a degree that would secure me a job. I changed my major five times along the way. I started at NC State in the College of Textiles, then switched to Technology Education, followed by Accounting, Business Management, and finally, in my senior year, I declared Art Studies as my major. Throughout this journey, my instincts nudged me in the direction of art—I took art classes as electives and volunteered as an arts and crafts teacher for a non-profit I co-founded at the Passage Home, and taught summer arts and crafts for the Boys and Girls Club camps. Deep down, I was trying to find a place for art in my life; it just took me a few majors to fully embrace it. I struggled with grades throughout my college career until I switched to art, where suddenly everything clicked. My final year of school was a breeze, and my grades were excellent. It felt like a sign that I was on the right path. Even then, being a full-time artist didn’t feel attainable.

After graduation, while I searched for a job as an art teacher, I kept my summer job as a bank teller, with plans to complete a lateral entry program. After a few months of searching, I found a position at a K-8 Charter School in Durham, where I taught for five years. Teaching art was a rewarding and challenging experience for me. I enjoyed it and loved working with the children, but I had initially thought I would have enough time and energy to pursue my art during school breaks. However, I soon realized that I needed those breaks to rest. When my partner and I decided to start a family, I recognized that my salary was insufficient to cover childcare costs, so we arranged for me to stay home with the baby.

Once again, I planned to jump-start my career as an artist while caring for my children at home, but I found another bend in the path. When the kids were little, I focused all of my creative energy towards parenting. I wanted to make creative spaces for them to learn and explore in. I made quilts, sewed curtains, made baby mobiles and toys and furniture. I homeschooled the kids from the beginning and spent my days setting up toddler art projects for my kids and my friends’ kids.

It wasn't until my youngest child turned two that I finally made space in my life to begin creating for myself again. At this point, I had been home with little ones for six years. I mention all this because although it may seem like I spent a significant amount of time reaching a point where I could be a full-time artist, I was consistently taking steps in that direction. I continued to teach art part-time while my children were toddlers and maintained a hobby of crafting, drawing, and painting. I was constantly creating, making art whenever possible, engaging in DIY renovation projects, and learning. These activities helped me to develop my voice as an artist. Upon re-entering the workforce after having children, I juggled between one and three part-time teaching positions, art markets, art creation, and my role as an influencer for GrafixArts, an art supply company that produces the mylar I use.

I have carved out studio space wherever possible over the years. In my first house, it was the kitchen table and later an up-fitted garden shed. I have utilized sunrooms, corner tables, and spare bedrooms. I began my first installation, "We Wondered If We Could Reach Its End," in a studio I set up on one side of my bedroom. My partner and I bought a new house in the middle of fabricating that piece and I completed it in a spare bedroom studio. When I realized I was ready for a public space, I started with a small wall at 311 Gallery, then moved to a larger space before finally settling in my current studio at Artspace. I applied to Artspace three times before I was accepted. The first time they offered me a space, I couldn't afford it and had to turn it down. The following year, when a space became available and the stars aligned, I moved into my beautiful studio #217, where I have been for the past two years.

When I resumed art-making after a long break during my children's early years, my work looked very different from what you see today. I started by honing my drawing skills, practicing realism and landscapes, and drawing my children. Then I delved into abstraction as a means to process some of the hardships and traumas that I hadn't previously addressed. Once these aspects of my practice reached a natural conclusion, I had the space and energy to concentrate on creating work that emerged from a desire to communicate the way I perceive the world now. I focused on producing playful, colorful, and cheerful pieces, primarily smaller 2-D works, and began incorporating mylar, sewing, and kinetic elements into my creations.

The journey into installation work unfolded rapidly. I felt a compelling urge to break free from the confines of the rectangular canvas and began experimenting with embroidery hoops to create round collages using mylar. Then I had THE DREAM. This dream marked a significant turning point for me. It was January of 2018, and I was filled with anger. In 2016, North Carolina ratified HB2, and in 2017, the Trump presidency further amplified the already prevalent bigotry, homophobia, and division in our country, resulting in the presentation of 129 anti-LGBTQ bills across the United States, with a significant portion of them originating in the South.

I am no stranger to feeling unaccepted by society due to my queerness. I grew up in the South during the 1990s, surrounded by bigotry. Bisexuality, when it was discussed at all, was often reduced to a punchline. I didn't know anyone who identified as bisexual, and examples of bi individuals in the media were scarce. This isolation left me feeling alone. Throughout my adolescence and young adulthood, I struggled to suppress my queer feelings, with every heterosexual attraction feeling like a small victory, a semblance of safety. My town, like many others, was not a safe place to openly express my queerness, so I concealed that part of myself.

When I finally came out to myself, I was in a committed, heterosexual-presenting relationship and I wasn't certain if coming out would make any difference. For several more years, I kept my truth to myself, sharing it only with my partner, close friends, and eventually, my children. It took some time for me to realize that this approach might be why I never encountered any bisexual people during my childhood. This realization marked a turning point, urging me to cast aside the secrecy and come out publicly.

I wish I could say that was the end of the story and that the rest was easy, but that's not the case. While a significant number of people unconditionally accepted me, I was unexpectedly rejected by a few individuals who were important to me, due to their own bigotry, dogmatic religious beliefs, and misguided hatred and fear. For a long time, it was challenging not to internalize the way they saw me and not to let their bigotry erode my own sense of self-worth. However, having a network of other queer friends in my life, whom I love, respect, and value, helped me realize that I should treat myself with the same love and care that I offer them.

Which brings us back to 2018, when, years after coming out and healing from a childhood steeped in bigotry and homophobia, I had had enough of anti-queerness, and I was fed up. I produced some angry art that helped me process those emotions, but I ultimately destroyed that artwork. It didn't represent what I wanted to offer to the world. There was already enough anger in the world at that time, and I wanted to use my art to bring joy to those who experienced it. That night, I went to bed thinking about how I had seen a rainbow after coming out as bi, and that rainbow felt like a sign—a hug from the universe, telling me that I was accepted. I wanted to share that feeling with others who might have been struggling in the same ways I had. That night, while I was asleep, I dreamed of walking through a tangible, giant rainbow in an art gallery. It was magical, and when I woke up, I knew I had to bring it to life. Over the next two and a half years, I worked on figuring out how to create that rainbow.

I experimented with various materials and methods, creating numerous maquettes during this period of exploration. Throughout this time, I developed a working relationship with Mandy McNulty, the owner of Artmosphere Community Arts Center in Clayton, whose support was invaluable. Mandy not only provided me with a space to install the rainbow, but she also asked the questions that helped me refine the work, improve the concepts, and create valuable programming around the exhibition.

We had planned to open the exhibit in May of 2020, but then the Covid pandemic struck, forcing everything to be put on hold. I spent another year redesigning the installation to accommodate for social distancing and organizing new programming. When the show finally opened in May of 2021, it was a dream come true.

The wildest part of my installation work is that I have never had a studio large enough to hang the finished work, and so I don’t see the work until I install it on-site. Therefore, hanging the work at Artmosphere after two and a half years of developing and fabricating a medium and concept entirely new to me was life-changing. It provided me with tangible proof of concept, and from that moment on, there was no looking back. Suddenly, I began seeing the world through the lens of installation art. Everything became a source of inspiration, and I could envision all my surroundings as an interactive, immersive installation.

The response to that piece was so overwhelming that I was commissioned for three more installations in Raleigh that summer. I now create large rainbow installations to amplify queer voices, ensuring that queer kids who encounter my work understand that they are seen, accepted, and not alone. I create this work to make a difference, and whether you are in or out of the closet, or an ally, if you come across it, I hope you know that there are people out there who love and support you. Those who cannot accept queer individuals have their own personal issues to confront.

As my journey as an artist has progressed, the themes I address through my work have become expansive. I’ve created installations at Pullen Arts Center about the power of art, public art pieces for the North Carolina Museum of Art, City of Roswell, GA, and World of Bluegrass Festival about nature, and Queer pride installations and public work for the Cities of Raleigh and Chapel Hill. I’ve had the honor of creating collaborative installations with Arts Together, the Poe Center for Health Education, and DREAMS Center for Arts Education in Wilmington. This year alone, I’ve had the opportunity to show my work in group shows at Durham Art Guild, Artspace, and VAE, as well as a solo show at 210 Princess Street Gallery in Wilmington, and my first solo museum show at Waterworks Center for Visual Art in Salisbury, NC. My installations this year have evolved to address topics like self care, home, place, and nostalgia, but the guiding light throughout my practice has been the pursuit of joy.

I have consciously embraced the practice of cataloging and cultivating joy as a means of navigating the ebb and flow of life. This habit traces back to my childhood, where I meticulously compiled a list of activities that brought me happiness. On challenging days, I would turn to this list to uplift my spirits, whether it involved taking a walk in the woods, climbing a tree, immersing myself in music, or indulging in the art of drawing. These simple acts of joy provided solace during times of difficulty, shaping my perception of the world.

In recent years, my artistic practice has seamlessly intertwined with this childhood tradition, becoming an embodiment of my journey to document joy, channel my energy towards positivity, and foster introspection and reflection.

My recent installation in Wilmington, "Where Joy Blooms," served as a metaphor for this transformative process. Within the space, oversized and abstracted flowers took center stage, highlighting the profound impact of tending to our personal wells of joy. The flowers, simultaneously transparent and opaque, moving and still, floating and rooted, symbolize the intricate duality of life.

Prior to this installation, my work was created using the technique I developed for the rainbow installation. I would paint mylar, cut shapes out of it, and sew those shapes together to create colorful strands that I hung from jewelry chain. “Where Joy Blooms” pushed me to try new techniques and mediums, but I continued to use materials and techniques that were accessible to me, many of which are associated with women’s work, like sewing, and crafts, like papier mache. In this exhibit, I crafted large scale solid sculptures from discarded insulation board and packing materials and covered them in recycled paper pulp and paint. I found salvaged plexiglass and cut it with my jigsaw before painting it to create the large scale glass like mobiles. I found discarded plywood and cut and painted that to create wall reliefs, and hung holographic fabric from the walls to set the scene.

“Where Joy Blooms” has marked another turning point in my installations - making the materials I use more diverse and allowing me to continue to expand my own iconography and skill set.

Using techniques traditionally associated with women's work and craft, has allowed me to transform ordinary materials into monumental artworks that serve as meditations on intentionality and resilience. Each meticulously crafted piece represents countless small actions, embodying the power of perseverance, and aiming to ignite joy in the lives of the viewer. I think there’s something really powerful in using women’s work to create monumental sculptures. I am drawn both to the idea that I can play with scale and take up space historically only occupied by male artists without conforming my materials to those historical patterns, and to the concept that these small actions - paint, cut, sew, repeat, can add up to something so large and immersive. To me, it speaks to the broader concept of how, with consistency, our own actions, no matter how small, can affect change and that we all have the power to make the world a better place. And in the case of my collaborative installations, how the cumulative effect of community, amplifies that impact. Many hands may make light work, but they also make big changes.

Working as a full time artist while juggling a family full of delightful, creative, kids who we also homeschool has not been without its challenges. Childcare is an ever evolving challenge and balancing motherhood and art making requires consistent tweaking and assessment. And while we continue to fight for a more equitable society where families are supported and women have equal pay, we’re not there yet, but it is all still worth it. Having kids has been one of the most impactful, wonderful experiences of my life. Seeing the world through their eyes has helped heal my wounds and helped me find my artistic voice.

One thing that I keep coming back to when I reflect on my journey and art practice is that I’ve been working towards where I am now my whole life, and I will continue to push my work and my career forwards for as long as I can. When I first went back into the workforce after staying home with kids, I felt this massive self-imposed pressure to catch up to my peers who hadn’t taken time off. After years of that, I’m coming to realize that building an art career is a long game. My goals as an artist are lofty, but I’ve already come a long way. I think one of the most overlooked things about success and successful people is just how much time they spent being unsuccessful. Becoming successful at what you do takes a lot of effort, a lot of time spent working towards that, and while the words successful and unsuccessful are polar opposites, I think our language is missing the more crucial word in that spectrum. Something that speaks towards progress. Perhaps the word we need is “Proccessful?” Building something new takes time. Betting on yourself requires enough faith in yourself to have patience and persistence. And those qualities, for me, have been the key components in getting where I am today.

My journey to becoming an installation artist has not been linear, but I am grateful to be where I am now, and I believe that the winding path I took helped me develop as an artist and a person. While I often say that I wouldn't change anything because I am happy and appreciative of where I am in my career, the truth is that if I could go back and speak to my younger self, I would advise her to trust herself and be kinder to herself. I would tell her to stop listening to the naysayers and those pushing her towards more practical paths. I would encourage her to listen to her gut, follow her heart, and become her own biggest advocate and supporter. So, my advice to all of you, regardless of your interests and passions, is to go for it. Find the thing that makes you proud to be you and do that. Bet on yourself. You only get one life and it is your life to live, so make it one that you love.

Traversing the Unconventional Path to Installation Art