Why a Mountain Girl Keeps Painting Water

I wasn't born in the mountains. But I spent a few years living in the North Carolina mountains and a summer in Vermont, and somewhere in there something clicked. The ridgelines, the fog sitting low in the valleys, the way light moves differently at elevation. The crisp air that makes you feel like your lungs finally have room. The people, who have this unhurried warmth that matches the pace of the land. I fell in love with all of it. Hard enough that "mountain girl" feels accurate now.

There is something that happens when you are standing at elevation looking out over a landscape that took millions of years to become what it is. You get this quiet sense that whatever made those mountains made you too. Same source, different expression. I felt that in the Blue Ridge. I felt it in Vermont. It is the kind of feeling that makes you want to pick up a brush.

So it is a little funny that when I sit down to paint, I keep ending up at the water.

Maybe it is because I am a Cancer. Ruled by the moon, drawn to the sea, emotionally compromised by a good sunset. Or maybe it goes deeper than that.

Reflections, open horizons, the way light breaks across a wave. Sailboats. I have never actually been on a sailboat. Not once. And yet I have painted them more than once -- Golden Voyage, Sunset Sails, Sailing -- chasing something in that image I can't quite explain. A feeling of being carried, maybe. Of moving without having to figure out the directions first. Honestly, that sounds amazing.

I think watercolor is part of why water keeps showing up. The medium itself is water. You are always working with it, negotiating with it, trying to guide it without gripping too tight. When it works, something happens that you didn't entirely plan. Which, from what I understand, is also what being on an actual sailboat feels like. I'll let you know when I find out.

Reflections are also just technically fascinating to me in a way I can't quit. You are not painting what is in the water. You are painting light behaving strangely, bending, breaking up, reassembling itself. Reflection, The Light Stayed, The Quiet Between the Waves each started with me trying to figure out how to make still water feel like it is breathing.

The mountains are not going anywhere for me. But I think water keeps showing up because it is the thing I am still learning. And that turns out to be a pretty good reason to keep painting something.

If you want to see some of this work in person, a number of pieces are currently on display at the Bara Bara Community Art Exhibition at Diamante Arts and Cultural Center in Raleigh, running through April 24th. Come by before it closes.

I also have work showing in the Apex PRIDE! Annual Exhibition 2026, a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies. The opening reception is Friday, May 1st from 6 to 8pm and the show runs through June 28th. I would love to see you there.

Interested in more events, check them out!