The Bridge I Hoped for

The Bridge I Hoped for

an art collection about the journey from cynicism to a place of hope and openness

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These past few years have been pretty tough for me — lots of hurt from people I had once trusted, a move to a new city, facing strange new struggles with my mental illness, etc. — and it left me pretty jaded and hopeless.

I could feel this massive gap growing within me:

A gap between who I want to be and who I actually am.

I wanted to be hopeful, uplifting, and willing to love people even though they’d let me down. But I found myself feeling bitter and deeply angry instead.

I wanted to believe that people could change their ways and that the pain was worthwhile… but I didn’t believe those things. And it felt so jarring.

And so, this craving started to build: I craved passage from this place of cynicism to a place where I felt safe hoping for better things.

picture: my embroidered painting, titled “A Bit of Plenty”

I explored this gap I felt within, and I processed my emotions through my artwork. I made abstract work for the first time, I experimented with mixed media elements, I made my own natural gouache for the first time.

I found that our new home was a healing place. The family we moved in with rebuilt me bit by bit, through just being themselves: warm and easygoing, loving and steady.

I realized that God had sent me all these “bricks” in unsuspecting forms: dinner with our family, a flower I hadn’t seen before growing along my morning walk route, a beautiful golden sunset, a pack of Sweettart Ropes, an email from someone I’d never met, and a series of epiphanies uncovered in these artworks.

These bricks built the bridge I hoped for.

picture: a peek into my sketchbook showing the color palette of the collection and the thoughts they brought up for me at the time

I didn’t realize it at first, but as the artworks piled up, my conscious mind started to pick up on the connection between them all.

I hope that these artworks speak to you as they did for me, and that they happen to fall into place in a way I never could have orchestrated, serving as gentle, serendipitous reminders right when you need them.

You are loved, you matter, and there are better things ahead.

The art work in this collection, The Bridge I Hoped for , will be available for purchase on August 1st, 2021