The Collection is Complete

My first oil collection is complete! I took a hiatus from painting for six years, and this is the first collection of oil paintings I’ve completed since that stretch of time. The Greek Trapezi consists of seven original oil paintings encompassing the themes of tradition, home, and heritage. I wrote a lot on the collection on its official page, which you can read here. There are also still a few paintings available for acquisition here if something catches your eye. But in this studio journal, I wanted to share a more personal anecdote to the collection and where I pulled from in order to create it.

I have always known I wanted to be a painter. I used to draw all the time as a child, and it’s something I especially love witnessing in my own children. College was when I first got my hands on a set of oil paints. My mom bought me my first and only easel for my nineteenth birthday. I remember when we carted it fully assembled into her car, barely fitting in the trunk, I felt this enormous sense of relief and awe that things were moving forward.

Upon graduating college, I had peers ask me panicked if I knew what I wanted to do with my life. We were freshly graduated, only twenty-two, and they were worried they were falling behind. They hadn’t found a career yet. Conversely, I felt completely, at peace. I knew I was on the path of making art and that it would work itself out in due time.

Some unfortunate health issues had a way of stalling and altering that path, though I firmly believe, even when we are away from our craft, we are always studying, always collecting information: the way the light filters through a tree, the way the sun sets and illuminates the clouds, the call of birds overhead as they travel to and fro — all of it informs our craft once we can return to our calling.

And this is what this collection seeks to do — it serves as a reminder of where I come from. The layers of tradition and home, the layers of memories, of childhood table scapes and the deep symbolism that exists in even the most mundane of arrangements. This is a collection of coming home for me.

I invite you to sit with these paintings, too. Sit with them and remember a peaceful time when the light was just so. When a loved one brought you lemons from their garden. Your mom pours you a cup of tea. The season is just right for figs and you’re enjoying them before they succumb to the heat of a hot summer night. Maybe there’s a wind blowing. Maybe you can hear the sea as it swells and retreats from the shore.

I invite you to take a moment and just, enjoy the simple beauties in life. They are abundant and can be found everywhere.