I never wanted to be a painter growing up. A creator, sure. 

As a kid I was always singing and making up songs and performing plays. For a decade I had my sights set on being a fashion designer and I spent my Saturdays sewing up a storm, listening to Taylor Swift CDs and ending the day with a fashion show to my family of what I had made.

But being an artist was never in my sights.

Born in 1993

People always ask me where I’m from and it is the most awkward and long winded answer but truly I don’t know how to define it. I was born in the hospital in Sault Ste. Marie but my parents lived in Blind River at the time. So right out of the gate it becomes a complicated answer because those locations are more than 2 hours apart. Then when I was 1 year old my parents and I moved to Calgary and lived there a short time before moving to Saskatoon when I was 2. I’ve had friends introduce me as “from” northern Ontario but I only really lived there later on in my life.

From age 2 to 11 my family lived in Saskatoon, both of my sisters were born there, and effectively I spent my childhood on the prairies. My memories begin there, my love of big open skies begins there, and moving to many different houses within the city left me feeling unrooted and disconnected from any sense of home. By the time I was 11, the longest amount of time I had spent in one house was 3 years.

In the middle of grade 6 during one of the coldest weekends on record we packed up our house and moved from Saskatoon to Leduc, Alberta… a city just south of Edmonton. I spent the remainder of that grade living down the street from my elementary school, and in July we moved everything out to a farm just southwest of Leduc where we stayed for the next 6 years. I went to junior high in the fall, entered teenhood, and became a farm kid all at once.

In junior high I joined both band and choir where I played the flute and sang soprano. I also auditioned for my first ever musical, a community production of High School Musical which had just come out the year before. I had never auditioned for anything before, and was in a room of over 30 people without knowing a single person there.

It was also at this age that I began learning to sew. On Saturdays I would hop in the truck with my Dad to take garbage to the dump and then he would drop me off in town at Fabricland where I would pick out a pattern and fabric for whatever I wanted to make that day. I also received a guitar for my 13th birthday which meant I could finally sing with accompaniment.

Over the course of my teen years I was part of 5 different musical productions; and looking back this was maybe my favourite creative outlet growing up. I got a chance to perform and find a level of self expression in front of a crowd that I really only saved for close friends. I did one more show in my mid-20s and always promised myself it wouldn’t be my last.

I have always been creative - be it music, sewing, or otherwise - but specifically painting I did not really get into until I was 17. I had an excellent visual art program in high school, but I also had exceptional band and choir and musical theatre programs I was part of as well. When I was in grade 12 I thought okay well all of these marks actually matter on a transcript for University so instead of coasting on my mid-80s average, why don’t I actually try and have some better marks. To nobody’s surprise - the effort resulted in higher marks (who knew?). But something else happened - I started REALLY excelling in my visual arts class. To the point where I changed my schedule so I could take Art 31 in my last semester, and prepare a portfolio to apply to OCADU with. There was a profound moment for me where my art teacher (who I really respected as an authority of good art) saw a landscape painting I had finished and with tears in her eyes told me I would be a painter. That didn’t exactly seal the deal for me, but I didn't really have other teachers or parents telling me to pursue the other creative things I was much more passionate about and dedicated to. Would I have gone into them if someone had? Highly likely. So I applied to OCADU in Toronto because I knew it had an excellent reputation for contemporary painting and was difficult to get into - when I did get accepted I thought okay well maybe this is my sign to give this a chance, and I don’t want to ever wonder “what if”.

2011 - Age 18

Then in my first year at OCADU I really didn’t enjoy it… there were other external factors of maybe why I was struggling (culture shock of moving from a an acreage to downtown Toronto, terrible Craigslist roommates, world’s worst long-distance boyfriend, no friends in Toronto, no money, etc) but I thought okay no this isn’t for me, let me prepare to audition for a music program and completely switch gears. So I walked into the Royal Conservatory of Music in downtown Toronto and signed up for my first ever voice lessons. These were the highlight of my week, taking the subway to Yonge and Finch, singing my heart out for a sweet old Chinese lady, and then spending every extra hour I had teaching myself the music theory I didn’t know but absolutely needed to know for the entrance exam. With songs dialed in and theory learned, I headed to my audition. The songs went just perfect, the theory exam didn’t feel to difficult, but in the interview I was torn apart - told that sopranos are a dime a dozen and that no matter how good my singing is, the fact that I did not have extensive piano experience would set me behind and I would fail in the program. The fact I had spent the school year preparing for this on top of my already full time school work load did not serve as proof I had the capacity to catch up with piano. When I was ultimately rejected, I gave up on myself then, too. I went from singing every day my entire life to barely singing at all, and never in public, for 4 years. Bitterly I will say I am glad I did not get into the program, but only because I love where my life ended up going. I have recently joined a choir on my journey to reclaiming my voice.

My second year at OCADU I enjoyed, but it wasn’t until third year that I felt more of the pull to actually pursue painting. In fourth year I knew I would, and that the road would be long and I’d have day jobs along the way and I prepared for that. This was the year I began to share my paintings on social media, posting them for sale, and beginning to sell online.

2015 - Age 22

After I graduated from OCADU, I moved into my parents house on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario. I worked a road construction job for the summer, and was hired by the local newspaper, the Manitoulin Expositor, that fall in a New Media Position. This was new to them and new to me so I grew their social media presence and helped with ad production. At that time, my studio time was split between commissions for people, landscapes for Perivale Gallery, and large abstracts for myself. I began looking for an artist residency to shake things up and go on an adventure, and I was accepted for the month of May 2017 at the Sointula Artist Residency on Malcolm Island all the way across the country in British Columbia. So I saved up my money, and in the last week of April loaded up my small car with all my art things and belongings enough for a month and half, and started my week-long drive to BC. I had some stops planned along the way at my Uncle’s in Wynyard, my Cousin’s in Saskatoon, and my Best Friend’s house where I grew up in Leduc. I slept in my car a couple nights along the way, but when I finally made it to the Edmonton area I just had a tingling feeling that I wasn’t quite done with living there yet in my life.

2017 - Age 24

My artist residency was transformative to say the least… have you been to Vancouver Island and the west coast of Canada? It has magic that can only be described by feeling it for yourself when you visit! Anyway a whole month of living in a cottage with nothing to do except adventure and paint was the best. I would go for a morning run, have studio time, and then go off on some sort of hike or drive or whatever I wanted to do. I met other artists for dinner, tagged along with a local hiking group, and led a workshop about abstract art making.

At the end of this month, I had no real plans! But I did have a boyfriend at the time who was working on a gravel pit in northern Alberta so I went to visit him, and it turned into staying and living in a camper trailer together for the next 9 or so months. We spent the summer on a pit north of Fort Mac, where there were nightly displays of dancing colours in the sky. The fall was a short time in central Alberta, and then November to early March was spent in the constant wind just outside of Regina… but finally close enough to a place where I could get a “real job” while still painting and selling my own work. In March of 2018 is when I decided to move back to Edmonton where I lived in my friend Jen’s basement and worked a retail job, all while still painting and sharing all of this online.

Fast-forward a bit to where I move again, work at a newspaper again, and a short time later in November 2018 I quit at the newspaper to finally just paint full time. I took the leap much earlier than I should have, but I was prepared to (and did) work my face off in pursuit of being an artist.

2018 - Age 25 until now… Age 32

Many website iterations, collection releases, art markets, the pandemic, a couple employees, and several studio spaces later, I have been a full time artist for over 6 years now. I have hit every milestone I had for myself when I was still back in art school, and have sent my paintings and prints across the world to many different collectors. Being able to share my art on the internet and social media as a self-represented artist completely changed the course of my career - but working really really hard to make it all happen has always been me.

In the past 6 years I have come out as queer, played rugby again, made countless artist and vendor friends, married my wife Grace, got a Pomeranian named Whisper, and have lived in one house the entire time.

What does my future look like? 

I always say, it’s never too late. Maybe I will pivot to another creative outlet, maybe I am wise enough now to know it is just as fun when it stays a hobby too. One thing is certain - I will always be creating. 

I have been represented by Perivale Gallery on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, since 2013.
I am also self-represented, selling online or at art markets.