I’m right there in the wind with you :)

Art has definitely played a leading role in helping me find beauty in all things, including myself.

I’ve always been the type who feels entirely too much. That is why I express as much as I do - I need to let it out and let it bounce around outside of my heart and my brain, otherwise it’s trapped and becomes intoxicating.

From an early age I embraced the internet and matrix of online communities within. I explored and learned and lived through the experiences of others. I found my niche in certain places and formed my own spaces. It’s been something that comes naturally to me.

As I grew older and began to pursue a degree in graphic design, I began to focus on cultural semiotics and the way signs, symbols, messages, image - everything around us that we soak up as a sponge - impacts us as a society. Visual culture is vast and human existence is impressionable. I started paying attention.

Almost simultaneously, I was introduced to body and fat acceptance through a friend. I was told, for the first time in my life, that it’s okay to be fat. That my body is okay. That there is a group of people out there refusing to be silent about this fact. That Health at Every Size exists and there is no reason to beat myself up anymore.

Once I comprehended this and opened myself up to the possibility of really owning and accepting my body as it was, my journey began, and it still continues. I have taken in and learned a lot, but I still have so much more to learn.

I don’t know the exact moment everything began to click. I know it was due to a culmination of all of the above, my creative and romantic nature, falling in love with the man I knew I would marry one day who helped me see the beauty in myself, coming into my own as a woman, the effortless love of family and friends in my life, and the online communities that have provided me with safety, comfort, education, and support.

I stopped blaming myself. I saw the flaws in the messages that are communicated about bodies and health and ideals and perfection in our culture. I decided I wanted to start changing and derailing these messages. So, I took on an independent study my senior year of art school and started this blog as a way to collect research and thoughts for an interactive installation.

Then somehow it morphed into what it is today and I cannot tell you how utterly proud and in awe I am of it all. Beauty is everywhere.

<3