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I was out cross country skiing when my phone dinged ten times in a row. Before you picture technology interrupting a serene experience with “whooshing” noises like a Nordic Track across fresh, downy snow, instead please imagine more of a clattering, dawdling planks on icy snowmachine tracks down near a river situation.  We made it…

A couple of years ago I was biking through snowy, cold woods. It was midday January in Alaska. I was with Wes, and we were a couple hours north of where we live. Even just a little Interior like that, the landscape vastly changes – more low-lying rolling hills versus stark mountain views. Ponds and…

I’m used to pining for one place from another. When I lived in New York City but my heart was in Alaska, I would pace the sunny streets of Brooklyn looking over the river into the new shining condominiums of New Jersey, wishing it was the Chugach range. In mid-January in the low light and…

Listen: I’ve tried yoga. I’ve tried it so many times. Back when Groupon was a thing, I bought unlimited yoga classes for a month and went religiously. I remember it was very difficult for me not to giggle when everyone’s butts were in the air. I felt irritated at an “ohm” dedicated to something terrible…

My poor old brain. I am constantly trying to feed it things and get it to do stuff for me. I picture it skulking around in the shadows trying to avoid me, wondering how many hours until we get to sleep again. Sometimes, when a new idea or realization hits, I feel my brain’s movement.…

It’s not lost on me that I’m writing this on this inauguration week in what will likely go down, some way somehow, in history books. I continue to be a firm believer that while as individuals it can feel like we are helpless and powerless, little actions add up to change. If you’re feeling a…

My kitchen table has seen a lot over the past year. It’s patiently endured wax spills, as I fully realized the extent to which I’ve become a “candles person” over the pandemic.  My stepdaughter set up for her remote classes each day during the summer with a smoothie to one side, thick textbook to the…

I started 2020, like many of us, on a roll. My art business was picking up, my calendar was full of little tasks and to-do’s; Fridays found me parked in front of my easel painting merrily away. When I wasn’t painting, I was growing my competence and confidence in facilitation and other small business/NGO consulting,…

Recently I decided to close my art studio in the Kaslosky building in downtown Palmer, AK. This was partially due to COVID-19. But what ultimately pushed me to a decision was the landlord insisting I remove the Black Lives Matter signage in my studio windows. I wrote the full story in an Op Ed published…

Oh, I think we can all agree it’s been an interesting week. I mean “interesting” like when you try a new flavor and hate it but are trying to be polite, or when you meet your friend’s new boyfriend and just…can’t. I feel like I’ve been handed a new multifaceted prism through which to see…

When I first started painting I was 15 years old. I was convinced every single time I started a painting that this would be the one I couldn’t complete. My paintings then were polished, “perfect”, almost hyper-realistic. I learned by the hair pulling, painstaking, breath holding process of doing; of teaching myself along the way…