Why I Still Paint
The Call for Collective Peace, painted with watercolors February 2026
When I was just a child, I painted because I fell in love with trees, the sunsets, and the birds. And then I painted for those I love. There has always been something immensely sacred about gifting what was personally created. No one had to teach me that to give art is to give a piece of your heart.
I painted out of sheer joy in awe and wonder. And then I painted when I was sad or felt rage rising in me. Art became my form of expression. It became my therapy.
My teenage artwork was full of stories of the mental health battles I did not have language for. With paint and pen, I released parts of my internal war through brush stroke and poetry on paper.
Adulthood brought a new season of creating. I found art to be a powerful form of advocacy. When we are inclined to desensitization, art reconnects us with our emotions. It moves us, inspires us, and can be such a powerful source of healing.
Art continues to carry me through times of loss, times of continued mental health battles, times of transition and change through marriage, motherhood, career transitions, and financial stress. Art continues to carry me when the weight of the world is too much. And it gives me an outlet. These days, art is also something magical I share with my children as their days are filled with creative expression.
Art is both the outward expression of how we feel, and a powerful way we can make a difference in this world.
Growing up can look like disconnecting from our creative selves. Once upon a time, many of us called ourselves artists. We used markers and glue sticks, sticks and leaves, coloring books and construction paper to make sense of the world and give our imagination a worldly home. Somewhere along the journey of growing up, our time becomes filled with the demands of a capitalistic society. Creativity is something we have to fight for. And too many forget that they are still artists. But in a word of so much demand, hustle, violence, oppression, overexposure and disconnection, creativity is something we MUST fight for.
So I keep painting. And I keep writing poetry. And I let creativity flow through me in everything I do. And I hope you find a way to do the same.
_____________
Every time I pick up my paintbrush-
The little redheaded girl with braids
Lifts her gaze.
She has dirt on her knees,
Paint on her elbows,
She smiles at me
And suddenly, I rise
Carried by her words, by her brushstrokes
By her dreams.
When darkness tried to scare her-
She wrote poems by candlelight.
When society tried to silence her,
She painted murals for all to see.
When mental health tried to steal her life,
She used watercolor and words to survive.
Sweet girl, we made it.
My paintbrush cries
Our poems
Our paintings
Are shaping a better world.
Every time we lift our paintbrush,
We paint with all those who still believe
in a soft world.
Where color and metaphor
Inspire empathy,
And a world where survivors
Heal in solidarity and in hope.
Hope- she smiles
Sunlight on her freckled cheeks.
As poems by Mary Oliver
hide underneath her pillowcase.
Hope-I whisper-
As my paintbrush meets paper
Once again.