“Everyone who terrifies you is sixty five percent water.

And everyone you love is made of stardust,

and I know sometimes you cannot even breathe deeply,

and the night sky is no home,

and you have cried yourself to sleep enough times that you are down

to your last two percent, but

nothing is infinite, not even loss.

You are made of the sea and the stars,

and one day you are going to find yourself again.”

-Finn Butler

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Dear light seeker,

If you are at all like me, this beautiful poem resounds deep in your soul.

It certainly did right when I first came across it. That was several years ago now- right after I graduated college with my degree in Fine Art Photography/Art History, a fancy award for “best senior honors thesis” for my underwater artwork and research on Pandora, a giant oppressive student loan bill, a zillion more artistic and scholarly ideas... and not a damn clue how to make a living doing ANY of what I learned and loved. Not a damn clue how to even create or balance a budget, to be honest. Certainly not on my income.

To quote comedian John Mulaney’s recent stand up special “What IS college??....Stop going! Until we figure it out!”

They teach you how to make art in art school. And certainly how to critique it. But they don’t teach you how have any sort of career in the arts where you can make a living. And they don’t even mention that it might be good to take a business course or two- because really if you’re an independent artist making and selling work, you’re a small business and so marketing and business classes might be really beneficial.

Living alone in a new city, working more than full time at just over minimum wage, at a series of soul crushing jobs and with crushing student loan debt those jobs still couldn’t pay for, while also learning as much about business and marketing as you can to build your dream creative business (and having most of that journey be teaching you what you don’t actually want your business to be)... it’s a lot.

There have been many many nights where I “could not even breathe deeply.” And I’ve definitely cried myself to sleep many nights and been down to my last 2% way more than is healthy…

But the night sky IS always home.

And so is the sea.

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So this piece of poetry called out to my stargazing, star-and-underwater- photography-adventure-chasing, mermaid soul instantly.

“You are made of the sea and the stars. And one day you will find yourself again.”

What instant relief. When your dream is the sea and the stars (and the unique artistic combination of the two) and you are down to your last 2%, living on high hopes and a prayer and figuring it all out as you go, these words are a magic balm.

These words AND a few others:

“Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong- in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.

Make good art.

I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best:

Make. Good. Art.”

-Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

Make good art. So that’s what I did.

It’s what I’ve always done.

And the art itself is always somehow a magic balm of its own. (Though maybe that’s because it’s art about the sea and the stars, which are always a magic balm to my soul.)

And now for the first time ever, as I step into a business that is exclusively about applying those hard knock earned business skills to only the sacred ART that my soul has always yearned for, the art from this past period of my exploratory career is available in this small and limited collection of fine art prints.

I’ve called this post-college nebulous body of work “the sea and the stars volume one” for awhile now, though I haven’t done much with it except one or two local art shows. It took me far too long to willingly embrace that I didn’t want to have a creative business to subsidize my art hobby.

What I actually most want, what my soul has always longed for, along with the sea and the stars, is an ART business.

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And speaking of soul deep messages and fabulous art, I’m pretty sure it was this Finn Butler poem (read for the zillionth time I’m sure) which finally made me realize “Oh hey. That’s actually what almost all of my art and inspiration has in common/is about. The Sea and the Stars. And the soul level connection echoing through them. Huh!” 

IT ALWAYS AMAZES ME HOW ART BEGETS ART.

-In fact, almost every piece in this collection is inspired by another piece of art- a story, a song, a novel, a movie, etc. Check out my blog for the details on your favorite pieces!-

And inspirational moments of clarity about oneself.

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That’s always my goal as an artist, too. I believe in the power of art to transform us, inspire us, empower us through sacred and transcendent wonder, and act as catalyst for us to transform the world. I believe that art and stories hold deep, soul-level value for that same reason.

My hope is always that by examining my artwork, by truly sitting with the beautiful imagery my soul calls me to make, you will be inspired to examine new perspectives of yourself and your life.

And I hope that it changes you.

I hope it brings you closer to knowing your home and your soul.

(Just like this Finn Butler poem and all of the beautiful art that inspired these pieces has done for me…)

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