Safe Passage; 2013; 11″ x 17″; mixed media: ink, watercolor, pastel.

I recently entered the Colorado Springs Art Guild Spring Show, Impressions, and I’m thrilled that one of my pieces won 2nd place. It’s an older piece that increases exponentially in meaning for me as I near the “launching” of my oldest child, who graduates from high school next month. My heart pleads and trusts daily for his Safe Passage through this time of transition. Safe Passage is now available as a limited edition giclee print in my Etsy shop, here. Click here to read the original blog entry about this painting.

Along with Safe Passage, Sacrificial Love and Burning Bush were accepted into the show. The show runs through June 2 at Woodmen Valley Chapel and is accessible through the bookshop. Limited edition giclee prints of Burning Bush are also now available through my Etsy shop, here.

Burning Bush; 2015; 22″ x 30″; in honor of the Kenyan Christians who died on April 2, 2015; watercolor.

If you have followed my blog for any amount of time, you know I am passionate about the world. I’ve stayed physically close to home, with the exception of a trip to Haiti in 2014, since I left my job in orphan care in 2012. My family has needed me here. Nevertheless, my heart continuously roams through the world in thought, prayer, and creative expression. I am so glad Etsy launched automatic shipping calculations so that I can now ship fairly anywhere in the world. Being a right-brained artist, I avoid mathematical gymnastics like the plague. But now my Etsy shop is accessible to all.

I recently posted about another show I entered, the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society International Watermedia Exhibit. I found out a couple days ago that my pieces weren’t accepted. Of course, as any creative knows, rejection launches wrestling with inevitable questions: do I really have any talent? why would I ever think I can do this? do I have anything to offer the world through my art? (Sharing a little vulnerably there! But if you are a creative, you understand.) I am mostly shirking the sting and pressing on.

And so I continue to paint, pray, and dream, one day at a time. I’m not sure at all where this studio “flight” is going, but I’m confident that, because of the One I follow, wherever I finally land, I’ll look back with gratitude on safe passage.