It all started when…

Budding Heart Studio birthed out of my own need to grow and heal through deep heartache and loss—grief that threatened to swallow me whole but turned out to be the ticket to an open heart.

After losing my Grandpa and Fiancé in the same week in 2015, I was left with devastation along with the ruins of the certain life I was building and the core of who had been integral parts of that.

I was given the opportunity to explore who I’d been trying to be while holding it all together, attempting to be perfect and acting as someone I’m not—inauthentic to the self that I lost sight of trying to be loved and accepted by others.

I began to write my way through grief and created my first blog, The Patchwork Heart. I discovered a buried passion and gift for writing and poetry. Something inside me was desperate to express the voice I’d stifled at some point in my childhood and unleash my creativity through words on the page.

Writing my story and pouring my heart out healed me in ways I had not known were possible. But the grief had broken me open and unlocked the gates I’d shut tight around my heart to protect myself, squelch my voice and stay far from expressing my truest gifts, passion and sorrow.

The writing eventually led me to becoming a coach as I worked on deep inner transformation. I desired to help others break free from the prison of self-imposed limits and fear while preventing them from living a lie, quieting their truth and becoming who and what others expected of them.

As I worked toward becoming a coach, I couldn’t see that the inner work I was doing was for my own soul—to carve a clear pathway forward for me—one that wouldn’t ultimately be as a coach but something far truer to who I am using my gifting as an artist, writer and teacher.

Hop, skip and a jump into painting

When greater loss greeted my still-struggling soul, I set aside what I’d been building as a coach to take a 9-week Creative Insight Journey course that led me back to painting—something I hadn’t taken up since childhood.

As I waded through deeper pools of grief than I’d ever encountered, I relied upon my renewed passion for painting to pour out my heart—much like I had done on the page with words through my first bout of grief.

I found painting was an even deeper dive inward into the expanse of emotions I was experiencing that were beyond words; I didn’t have to translate something intellectually through writing once I picked up the paintbrush. I often flung paint onto the canvas to transmute my anger into something beautiful.

As I painted, I continued to write and develop my blog, but it didn’t yet dawn on me that I’d use my own grieving process to one day help others through their own healing process. I simply knew I was doing what I was always meant to do: Art.

In 2019, I began to realize I could translate my desire to help others as a coach into teaching instead. I had long since thought of teaching workshops, but I always procrastinated to the best of my ability.

After taking a local paint pouring class, I fell in love with the free flowing paint. I had no control over how it came out onto the canvas or filled it as a finished product. It was the most freeing way to let go of control. Still, I didn’t think to teach paint pouring. I just became obsessed and shared my painting passion with others.

A new breakthrough

Several people started asking me to teach them how I do paint pouring; I figured it would be too cumbersome and time consuming to teach people individually thus my decision to finally teach a workshop on the perfect subject.

Budding Heart Studio is the divine culmination of a heroic journey through my own creative process and attempts to pick myself back up from deep trenches of sorrow and build something beautiful to help others heal—the ultimate concoction of what I’d been striving to build since I could remember dreaming of a change in direction in 2015.

Budding Heart Studio weaves my own art—the home goods and ceramics I create with workshops and my love for writing—which will always be interwoven into the fibers of my being and business.

BHS is my love offering to the world, as my truest, most authentic self and the purpose I am here to live out. It is my sincerest hope that as I offer my heart and soul others become empowered to create in ways that both heal their heart and allow it to bud into the fully radiant blossom they are—in whatever way feels truest to their heart and soul.