Kinship
What would it take to rebuild a broken world?
That question became the starting point for the Kinship series. I imagined a community brought together not by shared history or geography, but by a shared commitment to begin again. They had survived loss and displacement, yet chose to stay and rebuild. The story was imagined. The questions it raised were not.
As the series evolved, I found myself returning to women — not because I set out to paint them, but because they embodied the qualities I was exploring: resilience, compassion, courage, and the quiet work of carrying a community forward. The paintings center on women, but the experience doesn’t belong to them alone — it’s how any of us endure, rebuild, and find our way back to each other after everything changes.
Rebirth, the first painting in the series, became the foundation for everything that followed. From there, the work expanded into an exploration of strength, care, renewal, and the invisible threads that bind us to one another.
Rebirth began the story of Kinship. In a landscape marked by devastation, it imagines the moment when people choose to stay, rebuild, and begin again.
28 X 22 X 5/8 in
Acrylic on canvas
Renewal is about staying grounded—drawing strength and energy from the people and places that hold us up.
28 X 22 X 1.5 in
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
For me, Revival marks the moment when energy begins to return after a period of stillness. It is less about starting over than about feeling fully alive again.
30 X 24 X 1.5
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Liberation came from thinking about the uncertainty that often accompanies change, when familiar ways of seeing no longer seem enough.
24 X 20 X 1.5
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Tolerance sits inside the tension of living alongside difference — without assuming every difference can, or should, be resolved.
28 X 22 X 1.5
Acrylic, mixed media, textiles
Kinship reflects the connections that shape us over time. It suggests that even as we follow different paths, we remain linked by the relationships that leave lasting traces.
30 X 24 X 1.5 in.
Acrylic, mixed media, textile on canvas
Believe sits at the heart of the Kinship series. It asks what makes people choose one another again after everything has fallen apart.
20 X 24 X 1.5 in
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
The Gardener reflects the quiet work of tending—to ourselves, to one another, and to what comes next.
24 X 20 X 1.5 in
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
Respect grew from thinking about how a community holds together without asking everyone to be the same. It suggests that people can belong without giving up what makes them different.
24 X 20 X 1.5 in
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
While working on The Warrior, I kept returning to the idea of quiet resilience. She stands her ground—not through force, but through experience.
28 X 22 X 1.5
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
While painting Grace, I found myself drawn to quieter forms of strength. The painting leans toward calm rather than certainty.
24 X 20 X 1.5 in
Acrylic, mixed media, textile on canvas
Common Ground grew from the belief that community begins with what we choose to build together rather than what we already share.
24 X 20 X 1.5
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
Endurance reminds me of the quiet determination to continue, even when the path ahead is uncertain. It is less about dramatic acts of courage than the decision to keep going.
24 x 20 X 1.5 in
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas