I've known since I could hold a crayon that creating was my work. Life handed me countless canvases, that of unburdened youth, weary restorations of many old houses, joyful chaos of child-raising with endless art projects and Halloween costumes, to deeper personal transformations of later decades. Each asked that I bend a creative eye to whatever needed tending. Creation never waited for perfect conditions.

After decades shaping historic and modern spaces, I've learned every room, or image, holds memory and possibility. Your shelves, wardrobe, walls don't just function, they tell your story through intentional layers. Even silence and negative space speak... if you listen.

The beauty lives in working with what you have. Limited budgets become creative constraints - like coaxing old mill-work back to life or reusing fabric for curtains and upholstery, met with nervous hesitation and the sudden remembering of hands that know what to do. Skill gaps spark growth: the first fumbling attempts at wallpapering (now done with eyes closed), teaching myself new software, stubbornly unrelenting late at night. Small experiments, like using or wearing bold colors, wondering if I've used not enough or too many patterns, build courage over years.

What emerges carries personality and essence. It is alive with ease and spirit. Everything waits to be artful if you choose it - the plainest white coffee cup, cut glass pitcher catching light, minimalist sketch on scrap paper, or multimedia creation from found objects. While I know that form most often follows function, beginning with an artful end in mind is a good process. Art percolates in the everyday. 

Artful living is the quiet, thoughtful practice of choosing beauty, whimsy, statement pieces, and telling details to create your own personal art project. It is curation of daily life so your exterior reflects the spirit within.

And the best part? You can always change it or start over.

"The goal isn't perfection; it's presence."  Rick Rubin

Cracks in leaves. Wilted petals. Shadows that don't "fall right." These imperfections make the final piece breathe.

Perfection bores. Flaws prove life. Mono-print edges bleed deliberately. Pointillist dots cluster unevenly. Crooked branch lines refuse to straighten.

The creative life doesn't need flawless execution, it just needs honest marks.

"still moves me…."

Kayaking gave me the quiet, but the water gave me this magic. Those gorgeous greens, blues, teals and golds, sunlight waving on the ripples,  gentle movement while everything stays calm... the stillness my soul craves.

It took a moment for my eye to catch what it was trying to show me, and then I couldn't look away.

Four pieces from four separate times. Mono-print textures meet pointillist overlays, gentle macro motion beside random directions in space. From my photographs, transformed through divergent processes, but unified through adjacency.

Like interior design, this grouping creates experience through compliment and opposition. Warm glazing beside cool stippling. Soft edges against calligraphic line. Old techniques (monoprint) dialogue with digital slicing. Contrast doesn't compete, it clarifies. Linear elements activate motion. Each piece stands out because of its neighbor, revealing qualities that may be unnoticed in isolation.

As we would bring design to an environment, here is an opportunity for the visitor's eye to move through color temperature, scale relationships, spatial dynamics and "textures", mirroring room elements. What feels "missing" in one (detail, movement) exists fully in the next.

"night capers"

Darkness as canvas, light as mischief. There's a playful defiance here, a quiet caper against the void. They may be fragile but hold—it's how delicate things persist. The steady glow of things that endure through sheer presence.

Art lives in that tension at times, between being overwhelmed but with quiet resistance. We feel pulled toward light in dark times, drawn to what shines despite the weight.

These forms don't fight the darkness; they dance within it.

From the  same eyes that layers washi papers, paint, photographs, and graphic works ...

Design principles refuse boundaries. Texture relationships mirror composition tension. Scale plays. Light directs flow. Warmth pulls you in.

This isn't decor. It's composition that lives. Same deliberate decisions. Visitors don't analyze, they just inhabit the calm.

Artful living means every surface gets your eye. A porch table becomes canvas. No galleries needed when daily life proves the philosophy.