East Coaster
Virginia Tech Alum
Chicagoan of 18 years
Interior Designer by Trade
Childless with a Dog
Lover of Food, Travel & Live Music
Recovering Corporate Junkie
Would rather slurping Oysters
In a Nutshell
My Journey…
At the start of 2020, it looked like I had everything figured out. I was newly married, had a house, was climbing fast in my career. From the outside, it probably seemed like I was unstoppable. Honestly, it felt that way too — until it didn’t. A few months into the pandemic, everything cracked open. I was scrambling to keep a business afloat, trying to show up for my colleagues, trying to hold it all together with nothing but good intentions and a fraying string between two tin cans. Every day was survival mode, hoping better days would come before the bottom dropped out.
Then came a deeper break — the murder of George Floyd and the wave of outrage that swept the country. In the middle of all that anger and grief, a colleague and I threw ourselves into building Sounding Boards. Within 48 hours, along a small team of volunteers, we commissioned 30 murals for social justice across boarded-up storefronts in our neighborhood and raised $50,000 for local artists and non profits. It was messy & urgent, fueled by something bigger than planning or perfection. When the world catches fire, you don’t wait for permission. You run like hell.
2020
2021
When the protests quieted and life demanded we "go back to a new normal," I realized I couldn’t. I hit a wall so hard it knocked the wind out of me. Work turned hollow. Every conversation felt transactional. Panic attacks became a new kind of clock, ticking down the hours until something had to give. I started asking questions I had spent years outrunning: Was any of this even real? Did I earn any of it? Had I ever actually enjoyed what I built, or was I floating on a current of expectation and privilege that I never really chose? Now I know that’s just what extreme burn out feels like - joyless, neglective and repetitive.
2024
I knew I needed to be out of it all to see it with better clarity. I couldn’t keep patching over the parts of me that were tired, angry, lost and still living in my 20s. Since then, it’s been a slow, often uncomfortable process of learning how to actually be with myself at this stage of life. Some days it feels like a win just to walk my dog, do the laundry, stick to a budget, or shop with intention instead of trying to buy my way out of discomfort. I’m still searching for what makes me feel alive and what it even means to live with purpose. I don’t have all the answers. But for now, I know I’m chasing something experimental and painfully honest — and that feels like a good place to start.
Today, the art I’m exploring mirrors exactly where I am at: raw, practical, unapologetically quirky, eclectic, and occasionally self-indulgent. What you see is what you get — no polish, no perfect story, just a real-time experiment in honesty. I am trying to turn over every stone I come across, not to chase some impossible idea of perfection, but to figure out what feels real, what feels worth holding onto. I don’t know exactly where I’m headed yet, but for the first time, I’m okay with that.
The journey is the destination… right?
2025
