Hello and I Welcome You to my Tiny Art Village.

I’m a mixed media artist and storyteller through collage and paint.
When I speak of storytelling, I’m not thinking of performance or writing, but of a gentle pause—an invitation to notice how a woman is expressing herself in the world. It’s about becoming aware of how she is processing her experiences and moving from feeling overwhelmed to more grounded and aware.

I help women explore and express their story through creativity. Not by writing a perfect narrative, but by gently noticing the moments they’re living and the meaning they’re making of them. Awareness comes first, and creativity opens a space to pause, reflect, process, and begin to shift what they’re carrying.

I often use a simple framework called STORY:
Situation—what is happening,
Thought—what you’re telling yourself about it,
Overlay of Emotion—the feelings that come from that thought,
Reaction—how you respond, and
Your result—the outcome that follows.

When we become aware of the story we’re telling ourselves, we begin to create space for something new.

Below is why this work became so important to me—and the heart behind why I share it today.
At the time, I didn’t realize the skills I was learning would become the very ones my family would one day need. Looking back now, I can see how God was gently preparing me.

 What is stress quietly taking from you?

For our oldest daughter, Aimee, it was her ability to perform.

She loved to sing and dance—and at just 16, she was invited to perform daily on the Jim Stafford stage in Branson, Missouri.
She had a beautiful gift.

But behind the scenes, something was happening.

Her voice began to struggle.
Allergy symptoms made it difficult for her to sing consistently.

As we searched for answers, we discovered something deeper—
the stress on her body was connected to her thoughts.

She carried a quiet fear of “not being good enough.”
Aimee was a perfectionist—harder on herself than anyone else.

That inner pressure created stress…
and over time, it began to affect her physically.

What no one saw was her inner struggle.

I didn’t fully understand the impact of stress…until I experienced it for myself.

Like many women, I stayed busy—
believing I could handle anything life placed in front of me.

I was homeschooling our five children when our sixth baby was born early.
She spent her first week in the NICU.

When we finally brought her home, she came with a large monitor—
wires taped to her tiny body, alerting us every time she stopped breathing…
which happened several times a day.

Everywhere we went, that monitor went with us.

Between caring for her, homeschooling five children,
and serving in my community and church…
I didn’t notice what stress was doing inside of me.

The impatience.
The short temper.
The weight I was carrying—emotionally and physically.

I thought I was managing it all beautifully…
until one day, I realized I wasn’t.

On a difficult day, overwhelmed and exhausted,
I threw away an apology letter my oldest daughter had written me…unopened.

I was at the end of myself—and didn’t even realize it.

Six months later, our precious Aimee was taken from us in a car accident.

She was gone.

And my mind went back to that letter…what I would give now, to have read that letter.

That was the moment I could no longer ignore what stress had been doing beneath the surface.

The buried emotions.
The constant pressure.
The thoughts I carried every single day.

I had a choice:

sink…
or begin to change.

❣️ I chose to change.

And that is why I do this work.

🌻 Because what we carry inside matters.
🌻 Our thoughts matter.
🌻 Our emotional patterns matter.

And we don’t always see the impact… until it’s too late.

This is why I believe so deeply in creating space to process what’s going on inside of us—

Making space for awareness....a time for the mind to pause and think through creating art,   through creative journaling, through Creative Reminders, and through small, intentional moments of reflection.

Because real positive change doesn’t happen all at once…

It begins in the quiet moments…
when you finally stop—and choose to pay attention.