Navy Veteran, Mother of Four & I love to paint. ❤️
I create art to spill emotion into color, to loosen my grip on the world, and find beauty in ache or rain—where my soul wanders, weightless and free. Growing up in the beloved Pocono Mountains in a little place called East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. It was a small town with railroad tracks intersecting roads. Pine trees on every corner, that I onc
e climbed with my friends. I used to love walking on the tracks, with a cigarette in one hand, and a hot medium dunkin donuts hazelnut coffee in the other, on my way to school each morning. Listening to Alanis Morissette, while I peered at the trees, cars, and people passing by, just thinking about who I wanted to become. My high school career was not an easy one. Sophomore year, walking the halls, I remember picking myself apart, never truly feeling up to the expectations of people. Whether it was the emotional abuse from my parents or the cliques at school. I needed to feel wanted, like I was accepted for the person that I was trying to be, even if I didn’t know exactly who that was. It was when I lost my virginity and disappointed my parents, that I fell into a dark depressive artsy state. I broke down completely to the point that I would put my skull candy headphones or Sony boombox on full blast and escape into my art. It was my escape from the hard reality I was pained to know. The constant yelling between my parents every day, that I could hear through the walls vibrated in my head. It’s what made my art at the time dark and vibrant with every color. It was my oldest sister, who helped take me out of the dark harmful home with my abusive parents, that helped focus my mind more on my passion for art and less on the damages done. I still had no idea what I wanted but I knew that I wanted to express it through my art. I remember being in a sunlight room that was filled with Mac computers and in the back of this tiny classroom was a dark room. In the dark room where we developed our film, I said to myself, “I could get used to doing this all the time.” It was what influenced me to really dive into my art. Something about developing negative film into positive images that sparked a flare in my heart. I juggled with the idea of being an art therapist or going into the military. I never wanted to be in debt for the rest of my life. So, my sister did everything she could in her power to get us to the Art Institute of Philadelphia for an open house, so that I could decide for myself if that’s what I wanted. The amount of money it would’ve taken for me to go there was absolutely frightening to me. Instead she proposed the idea of joining the military like my aunts and uncles had before me. I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the idea of joining the military. It was when I did research and discovered that I could travel while taking photos for free that I got excited with the idea. Joining the United States Navy was not as easy as I thought it would’ve been. It took hard work, dedication, and countless hours in the gym. I had done a total three sixty, from being this artsy depressive eighteen-year-old girl to being a future driven young adult. Going through boot camp for the Navy was all a mental game to me. I had to have my bedsheets tucked in with hospital corners. My clothing had to be folded a certain way or it was hell to pay. Once I got to the fleet, I was nineteen-years-old and five feet away from an F-18 fighter jet, with exhaust shooting up the launching ramp ready for takeoff. Every day on an aircraft carrier became a routine. I woke up in a berthing that had six racks to a cube. It was always crucial that I showered every day from the constant work that I would do on the flight deck. The length of a flight deck is about the size of four football fields, which is what I would run from the bow to the stern, chasing aircraft every day. My job was to direct the aircraft on the flight deck. I loved directing the pilots to the catapults when they were ready to launch. It was an adrenaline rush for me. I was stationed in San Diego, California for my entire military career. I love sunny San Diego still today and will always call it my second home. I traveled the seas on the USS Ronald Reagan CVN-76 to the tropical Hawaiian Islands. I’ve gone on a south pacific tour, which consisted of visiting Peru, the gorgeous beaches of Chile, the busy city of Rio de Janerio, and sailing the cold Straits of Magellan. There wasn’t a time in my military career that I didn’t have a camera in my hand, capturing every moment, like it could be my last. After serving my four years in the service, I had to decide if I wanted to stay in, to continue traveling or to get out and go to college for art education. I chose to pursue my art. When I came to the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii, I had every intention of finding a full-time job and to start my college degree in art education. But I had a major setback. In August of 2016, I got pregnant with our first child, a baby boy. I felt nervous of giving birth and happy to meet our little bundle of joy. Throughout my pregnancy I ate, slept, and drew all the time. My husband would leave for work at six o’clock in the morning and I would wake up and eat an “eggy in a blanket” or peanut butter and jelly Eggo waffles for breakfast. I sat at the kitchen table with every art supply I needed to create whatever popped into my head that day. I loved watercolor and using sharpie for the boldness of the lines. Whenever I tried to draw people, it frustrated me but I never backed down. My pregnancy brought out the happiness and joy that was in my art. It no longer was dark and vibrant but colorful with meaning. Now being a mother of a handsome blonde hair, blue eyed little boy, I found that I want nothing more than to share my experiences and my passion for art with him. I guess that’s why I have a passion to be an art educator. I want to help supply the children of future generations, to find their own passion for art as well. To get lost in it, the way I have my entire life. I knew I wanted to be an art educator when I sat down with my husband and he asked me, “what do you love doing? And what makes you the happiest without much difficulty?” My answer was my art and teaching young children. Now five years later after escaping from my small town to travel the world, with a mug of coffee in my hand and a pencil in the other, I’m ready to start my dream.
