Artist Life

Fresh starts.
My family moved around a lot when I was young. I spent my early childhood in Germany, my middle school years in the US, and my high school years back in Germany. While my parents worried about packing up our lives in boxes, I got really good at daydreaming about my future.

It kinda made me fearless in a lot of ways. Focusing on the future was my coping mechanism for dealing with all the sad and scary thoughts about moving.

And it might explain why I have ants in my pants about forging ahead and finding my place in the world.

Each move was not only an adventure but a fresh start to a new version of me.

One thing’s for sure, I’m a firm believer in following your curiosity. Which is how I’ve ended up going down a rebel path of art-making and fashion.

Being the new kid.
What I soon learned was that after the excitement of being able to start over, came the discovery that by default I was cast as the new kid at school.

And being the new kid means you sometimes draw attention you don’t want. Because you talk funny, look different, dress weird, eat strange things, you get the idea.

The good news? I got comfortable with being a misfit.

Being a misfit doesn’t mean being indifferent. It means being comfortable with being different for the sake of your own values. In other words, for the sake of feeling comfortable in your own skin.

And for me, that means the freedom to express my creativity. This has been the desire that has guided me my entire life. It’s how I see and define myself. It’s the story I tell about myself. In short, it’s how I show up in the world.


Deep dives.
You might assume that I studied art in college. I did not. I studied interior design. And then working as an interior designer led to making theater props. That in turn, led to painting full-time. Followed by making wood sculptures and wood automata. Then sewing got the best of me and I made soft sculptures and fabric dolls. When my studio space got smaller, I focused more on watercolor drawings and writing.

There have also been monster puppets, paper theaters, murals, installations, scrolls, and boxes. Twenty-plus years is a long time.

But none of this happened in any kind of orderly fashion. I wish. It was more about overlapping projects where experimentation played a big role. Working on one project would always open the door to the next.

And to be honest, from the outside, it looks like I’ve never been able to make up my mind about what medium to work in. Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

My mind has always been very much made up.

With every project, I’ve been following my joy.

It just so happens that my joy comes from working in many different mediums.

Think of me as a rebel.
Although I’ve been consistently making art and writing for over 20 years, I’ve been too afraid to stop living small. I’ve let my perfectionism keep my joy on hold. Pretty much all my life. Yikes.

Then I discovered that my sassy misfit attitude is a superpower for getting myself unstuck.

Now I’m a recovering perfectionist who’s learned how to care less and play more. And I inspire other women who feel stuck to do the same.

And all this brings us to Twinki-Winki.

Think of me as a rebel on a mission to bring more joy to the world, one human at a time. Starting with myself. And I just happen to be an artist, a teacher, and a fashion misfit. So there ya go.