I’m used to making art alone. Live painting changed that. Suddenly there were people surrounding me, cameras in my face, watching every decision I made. And somehow, instead of making me shrink, it taught me how to take up space.

When I paint, I become completely immersed in what I’m doing. I move with the paint and the canvas. I pour, lift, tilt and follow the paint wherever it goes, usually ending up covered in it myself. The room can be full of people and somehow, they disappear.

This is where Butterfly World was born.

Butterfly World is the place I go when I create. It’s my inner garden, where nothing outside of me gets to interfere with what is happening inside of me. No one else’s hands get to touch it. It is where I learned that being seen doesn’t have to mean giving other people access to me.

These paintings were made in front of an audience, but they came from a place that was entirely my own.