2025 Closing

2025 is about to close, and I will welcome the new year without hesitation. The changes throughout 2025 felt like a bullet train, with me seated without a seatbelt, running through a country that has been in a lot of chaos due to the constant news flashes announcing this, that, or something else in messages that stirred up anxiety in the people, which included me. I welcome 2026 as a stronger person because of the chaos, and with more confidence to handle whatever may cross my path and destinations. I courageously closed my beloved gallery in Palm Springs to make Seattle my primary residence, and all of my paintings are at last in a resting place in my Snohomish gallery. It isn’t easy to embrace change with the idea that it is genuinely the right decision, but I believe that once a decision becomes formalized in your brain, you are the one responsible for making it the right one. As of late, I have done quite a few paintings outdoors, focusing, of course, on my dearest subjects: trees, skies, and water. There is plenty of water around Seattle in the forms of lakes, creeks, rivers, puddles, waterfalls, and the most significant body of water, the great Pacific, which outlines our state to the west. The range of trees here fascinates me, and Seattle, aka the Emerald City, has a fair share of such varieties, so I find myself on walks gazing at their beauty and forgetting that I want to capture their essence on canvas. Skies in the PNW are a channel of constantly changing patterns, so I never have the pleasure of lingering at my easel, because I am busy chasing the moody skies and cloud formations. So, bring on 2026 and all it will offer, and in return, I will focus on the gratitude that life gifts me and the appreciation for having my health intact and warm, loving relationships with those who surround me.