My birthday was this week and I opened the doors of my studio to celebrate. There was something especially meaningful about welcoming people into the space where so much of the quiet work happens—the experiments, the unfinished paintings, the ideas that go nowhere and the ones that suddenly become something more than I imagined. And wow, did I feel the love . . .

So much of creating happens alone. A painting begins quietly in the studio, often before I fully understand what it is trying to say. I follow it, layer by layer, trusting that eventually its meaning will reveal itself. But then it leaves my hands. And suddenly, the work belongs to the conversation . . .

Living beside the Great Lakes has changed the way I see the world. I've watched the shoreline shift with the seasons, the light transform from hour to hour, and the same stretch of water become something entirely different from one day to the next. It has taught me that nothing living stays exactly the same. Everything is always moving, always becoming . . .

There’s a particular rhythm to late July in northern Michigan. The days are long enough that conversations spill into the evening, events fill our small towns, and art has a way of finding its way out of studios and into the world. It feels like a season of open doors . . .

The cherries are ripe! The orchards hum with color—branches heavy with red, the trees bending slightly under the weight of their own generosity. Everywhere you look, something is ripening. The fields are lush, the air warm, the light endless. It’s the season when Michigan feels most like herself: abundant, fragrant, overflowing in every direction . . .

The lake is still cold enough to startle you—but I find myself in the water as often as I can. There’s something about slipping beneath that clear, chilly surface that resets me completely. The shock of it, the brightness, the way the cold gathers around my ribs before settling into a kind of quiet peace. Even on the days when the air is warm, the water reminds you that winter wasn’t that long ago. It asks you to meet it honestly. It offers beauty, but only if you’re willing to surrender to it . . .

The light has a way of stretching across the day as though it doesn’t want to let anything slip past unnoticed. The leaves are fully open now, shimmering with that deep, early-summer green; sunlight filters through them in thin, golden sheets. Even the shadows feel alive. Morning birdsong threads through the edges of the day, and the air carries the soft hum of everything growing. It’s a season that invites looking—real looking—because beauty is everywhere . . .

The lilacs are impossible to ignore. They bloom with a kind of wholehearted abundance—heavy clusters of purple, white, and soft blush bowing the branches under their own sweetness. Their fragrance drifts across entire neighborhoods, slipping into open windows and lingering on the air long after you’ve walked past. You can smell them when you’re driving down the road. It’s my favorite scent in the world, not only because it’s beautiful, but because it carries a presence you can smell before you ever see it . . .

The orchards feel electric. Every branch is just bursting with blooms. The air is rich and fragrant. Even the light feels expectant, lingering over the land as though it wants a front-row seat to the unfolding. There's a wildness to this moment, a held breath right as beauty breaks wide open . . .

This morning, the air held that unmistakable softness that only early May can bring. The trees are just beginning their green blush, the grass is growing brighter along the roadside. The first ferns are making their quiet entrance . . .

Our April landscape here is a study in contradictions. The snow is finally gone (we hope), but the ground is beyond saturated.  Between extra snowmelt and this recent monsoon season, our waters are flooding and the ground is soft and muddy, holding the memory of winter. Patches of green are emerging—nothing dramatic, just small, shy beginnings through the fields of fog . . .

It’s official. I’ve moved into the new studio and fully furnished this 750 square feet of beautiful open, airy, light space. This called for a million decisions that may be right or wrong and I won’t know until I'm fully working in the space. It reminds me that faith, even in spring, is an act of trust . . .

That reflects exactly what’s been happening for me over the last few weeks. While the world is in chaos, I’ve been focusing on finding small and quiet reprieves. Then, I miraculously got wind of a new studio space…a dream space. The kind I would have NEVER thought possible . . .

This morning I walked past a grove of sugar maples and recognized the lines and bags. The sap is running. Just a few drops, but enough to signal that the freeze–thaw rhythm has finally begun . . .

This morning the sun rose slow and reluctant, casting a gold glow across the frozen lake. This is the small lake where we watch the winter sunrises as we don’t have many sunsets in the winter. The ice looked almost luminous—solid, quiet, holding the weight of winter with a kind of humble strength. I stood there watching the light shift across the surface, remembering how, just weeks ago, the water was restless and open . . .

Yesterday I walked through the orchard under a sky the color of pewter, the kind of February sky that feels low enough to touch. Snow lay in clean, unbroken drifts between the rows, and the cold was the kind that settles into your bones . . .

This week I stood at the edge of a lake, watching the wind push long plates of ice against one another—shifting, drifting, rearranging themselves without ever fully settling . . .

In the first days of winter, I often feel the tug to begin again—this year feels different. Beginning looks less like striving and more like honoring space. 2025 reshaped so many parts of me: routines rearranged themselves, priorities shifted on the fly, we renovated the house, moved me out of my downtown studio, and somehow every single part of how I work evolved . . .

The day after Christmas always feels like a long exhale — a quiet clearing where the noise settles, the lights dim, and my heart finally starts to catch up to the year it has lived. And this year… what a year it was. I can scarcely take it all in . . .

St. Lucia Day feels like a celebration of way finding to me. Not many are familiar with it in this country, but it harkens to my Swedish roots where they have a much more widespread celebration . . .