Field Notes
Visual catalogues of my various travels and homebases
“Just go, take the risk, live an interesting life, tell a good story.”
I’m doing my best! And I always have a small watercolor palette in my purse.
Over the past 5 years, I have been lucky to travel, study, and work in beautiful places, learning in each stop along the way. I’ve seen rooftops in Italy, trails in Spain, ships, trains, planes, sandy beaches and hammocks in the woods. The art I create in those places is always tied to the people I was sitting beside or talking to.
I think of sitting and painting my friend Temple in the lifeguard stand or Harper talking to the girls catching frogs while at Camp Illahee; I think of my friend Molly playing guitar across the room while I mixed colors in our room in Florence. My sketches from Paris make me think of Michel, the kind artist I met by the Seine who accepted my five pound note and four quarters instead of the requisite 10 euro charge for the painting of his I bought. My daffodil watercolors at Bryanston bring me back to the explosions of yellow covering the hills in March and the morning wakeups greeting the girls in the boarding house.
These are catalogues of my memories, and I hope they inspire you to sit and observe as you travel… and to do the same in the place where you already are now. There’s more beauty and inspiration to see around you, right where you are living, than you can even believe.
Dorset Days
From August 2025 to July 2026, I lived and worked in a boarding house of 67 girls in Dorset, England. I had a great flat off on the side of the house, and I taught economics and art, or coached field hockey, netball, and tennis, during my days. There were great friends, lots of ridiculous stories, bright ole daffodils, and plenty of proper pints.
Here’s some of what I made while I lived there.
I spent two glorious summers on staff at Camp Illahee in Brevard, North Carolina, and many more as a camper. I wore many hats (where does one add song parody writing, snake catching, and flash mobbing on a formal resumé?) but one of my favorites was “Head of Painting”. The girls and I sat by the swim lake on hot days, painting the lessons going on. I’d overhear a younger camper ask their friend curiously, “where do you think all the frogs sleep at night?” or two older girls realize they were from the same town. We’d speculate about what was for lunch and make up ridiculous songs, and I’d sketch them along the way. Summer as it’s meant to be: bright days, cool nights, flashlight time and firefly catching, s’mores over proudly built campfires, singing about the moon and trees, sore post-hike legs and crisp, cool water. Lots of laughter, a handful of hand-me-down stories, a few tears when it’s time to go.
I’m lucky that Brevard is a mere 40 minutes from my cousin who’s a letterpress artist. Seeing her studio and observing her “flow” as an artist, mother, and business owner was very inspiring. Check her out https://maconyorkpress.com/! And enjoy a walk through my Brevard days.
Brevard &
The Appalachians
Florence and Travel
There are few things more exciting for me than living in a city with great art and great food. While in Florence, I took an art history class with Francesca Marini and Life Drawing with Tiziano Lucchesi. Professor Marini would lead us around the city, into little old churches and the Uffizi to see some of the most famous paintings in the world. “Come closer!” she would encourage us. “Look right up at the piece.” Between the city of Firenze, the ability to travel around Europe for the first time, living with my friend who loved to sing and play guitar, and all the wonder of having art stores in walking distance, I was in a bit of a creative heaven. Photos of work done there coming soon.
