A curious soul recently asked: What is your biggest piece of advice for someone torn between getting a degree or teaching themselves art?

What a big, beautiful question -- one I've been asking since the beginning, as well. Although I certainly have an opinion, I turned to a group of AMAZING artists, some self-taught, some traditionally educated, some both, for advice...

If there's one thing I've learned over the past three years of being self-employed and working as an artist, it's that the process can be a rollercoaster of emotion. You'll have days or weeks when you feel unstoppable and filled with inspiration, yet there will always be moments when you question everything and wonder if it's all worth it...

I've been thinking a lot about time, focus, energy, and attention. Where do you put most of yours? Where would you like to place yours? Is there a difference? For me, there is. And I easily know where I'd prefer to put mine...

Almost every time I'm out in the mountains there is a moment of pain or exhaustion when I ask, "Why?".

Sometimes I even say, "I'm never doing this again" or "I'm never going back there". 

Yet every time, without fail, my body recovers and I find myself yearning for it all once again. And I remember why...

I want my own art studio.

That's been the dream for years. I've painted on virtually every floor in my apartment, on hotel room tables, in the van I lived in for 8 months, on dirt back roads, and in my friend's metalworking garage. I've accidentally splattered paint on furniture and once even ruptured the top of a tube, leaving a splotch of teal on my studio apartment ceiling (goodbye, security deposit)...

There is a whole part to being an artist that we don’t talk about much. The feeling, the opening, the brutal joy and pain behind the colors, the lines, the strokes. A creative life is just as much about feeling as it is about making...

“It’s a land you learn to love very slowly.”

I jotted this quote from Francis Mallmann down one night while watching his episode of Chef’s Table (for, like, the 20th time).

..a land you learn to love slowly.

I paused the show and let the words sink in. They felt like warm vanilla. Comforting and familiar, yet something I've yet to experience during my 27 years on this earth...

Over the past year you've asked some great questions on everything from where to park, to working while traveling, to what it's like being a solo woman on the road, so I've put some of my answers in one handy place for you...

Last night a good friend video called me from New Zealand. It was 9:30 p.m. in Denver, 5:30 p.m. in Wellington. I sat in bed under a thick down comforter with a cup of tea, while she was still wearing a striped summery top after just getting off work. Her hair was much longer than last time we Skyped — almost seven months ago — but the conversation picked up like we’d seen each other yesterday, as it always does...

A poem from my trip to Moab...

Exactly one year ago I rode my awkward old Raleigh two-speed bike to the Wellington Library. Despite it almost being summer, the capital was cold and windy, and I ordered a flat white while staying bundled in my big down jacket and scarf.

I sat at a table in the library cafe and pulled out a drawing pad. I had no idea what I was doing — just playing around with pen and paper, like usual — and sketched the first-ever #atwildwoman...