Jellyfish are perhaps the most underrated living beings on the planet in my eyes. As understudied as they are, the world’s top jellyfish scientists still have many questions about these beautiful creatures. I have fallen head over heels in love with them, as they symbolize the perfect juxtaposition of simplicity and complexity that is found all over nature.
These “simple” creatures have been inhabiting the earth’s oceans long before humans, or anything that even remotely looks like us. They have outlasted creatures who are larger, stronger, and, yes, even smarter, and they will very likely outlast us if we don’t get to work reversing the climate crisis. With increasing numbers in our warming oceans, their existence begs the question: “Who is really winning the evolutionary game here?”
As artwork, the simple shapes and lines of a jellyfish’s anatomy allow me to learn new techniques and experiment with digital illustration programs in new ways. Please enjoy their simple yet ornate bodies with me as I explore what it means to create beauty and be beautiful.
For years now, I have been pursuing a career of the creative, idealizing a workflow with a new adventure every day and no strict schedules and numbers to hold me back. For the past two years, I’ve been living the 9-5 and struggling to find room between my work and social calendars to sit and create.
Writing. Design. Activism. Art. These four pillars were once the foundation I built my life upon. For four years I found new ways to create and inspire in the classroom, on campus, and in my community. These four pillars, I felt, would be enough to carry me into full-time work at any nonprofit or advocacy organization of my choosing and after struggling to find the perfect fit, I landed a job in beautiful Minnesota. I adapted to this new life; I loved it for a while; and then the routine set in. Until it didn’t.
Like many of you, I’ve spent the last five months (almost six? who is counting?) in lockdown. Traversing a radius no larger than a mile or two around my apartment. My old coworkers have become mere faces on a Zoom call, replaced by a growing collection of houseplants to keep me company. With over an hour of time saved commuting, my days suddenly felt longer and shorter all at once. Weeks slipped by in this new routine that consisted of many less trips to the water cooler and many more hours spent playing Mario Kart.
I have tried to stay upbeat and inspired in our new tender world. Music has helped. Zoom calls with friends and family near and far have helped. Sending money to food banks, bail funds, and community organizations has helped. Long walks to the park or the river have helped. But there is still a hole in my heart, that I wasn’t sure how to fill until now.
That hole in my heart is the size of a one-line poem about a sunrise on the bus to work. It’s the size of an art fair with alien gardens and prints of pop surrealist paintings. It’s the size of a bike ride in a place I’ve never been, a bus ride on a route I’ve never traveled, and a walk where I can get lost without trying. It’s a stolen weekend away in a new city. What my quarantine routine has been missing are the caught-by-surprise moments that help me stay inspired. The moments of unfamiliarity that encourage me to be a writer, designer, activist, and artist.
So I have (very slowly) been channeling that pent up energy into this website. This portfolio. These words you’re reading now. A few months before all this mess began I succeeded in reaching my savings goal to purchase a new computer and an iPad for digital illustrations. These are the first fruits of those purchase. The examples of how I am using the tools accessible to me at this time to be creative and maybe put some beauty into the world.
Everything on this site is still in its earliest stages, and I’ll continue to update and add new content as I finish it. Thank you for being here for it’s beginnings. Visit my Work With Me page if you want to see what I’m working on and how you can be a part of it.
