Origin Story
Fourteen pieces, each has a story to tell. A story that stands alone by itself while collectively weaving into the intimate origin story of the artist. With intentional names and poetic vignettes, this collection symbolizes a crossroad; where the making of an artist meets the making of a piece and how those stories go on to connect us once out of the studio and into the home.
Soab
31” x 23”
acrylic on raw canvas
$650
I was born in southern Alberta. A small town nestled outside the Rocky Mountains. Looking back, the best part was living near my grandma. She’d collect spoons of places she traveled and when word got out, people started collecting them for her. She had them hung above her kitchen counter. She had no desire to leave that town by the time I was born. She liked driving to Connie’s to play cards in the evening and would sit on a stool near the stove eating raw vegetables. But on Fridays she’d drive us up to the nearest city. Kids ate free at Humptys and there I would make a craft at the kids corner. 54 minutes of canola fields passed in the van windows both ways. I still get lost in their yellow.
Flathead Lake
36” x 24”
acrylic on raw canvas
sold.
For every crease on my face, there was a 90 degree day here behind it. My best friend Pat. “ The Boys”. Busted fingers from too many rounds of Trout. I can hear Ben on the aux. When the waves get rough, we make a game out of it. Do you remember the summer of 2014? Neither do I, but I’m sure glad I got to experience it.
Beargrass
30” x 29”
acrylic on raw canvas
sold.
Hunter Day told me that everyone he knew was encapsulated by a flower. How when he would be outside, seeing that flower would remind him of the people he held most dear. So on a summer’s day when my dad lets me crash his Crown of the Continent tour, I’ll make a 4 hour drive to arrive on time. I pick him up from his trailer before we enter the park. I bring him sunscreen and allergy pills, things I know he needs but won’t buy for himself. Right now he’s wearing his jammer hat, button up, and has the mic to his mouth. Gears shift and he speaks. It feels sacred when he shares Glacier’s secrets with me and the rest on the bus. We’ve turned student again and I feel proud for the first time in a long time. I’m learning these mountains can heal even the most broken, at least for part of the year. I turn to my left and see the beargrass has returned despite months of snow. Swollen and puffy and wildly content. I realize then that Hunter Day had it right afterall.
Coyote + Ky Minis
My great grandfather, Ky.
Born on the Lewis Ranch in Montana where his father trained horses, Sheldon Woolf was the first in my family to receive US citizenship. Playing on his last name, Sheldon earned the nickname Coyote by his friends. As time went on it was shortened to Ky- the name I heard from my dad growing up in stories about his grandpa. The name I saw when Grandma pulled out that old, tattered Christmas stocking. So when they say all roads lead back home, I think of Ky- and like Dorothy I close my eyes and click my heels three times and murmur the words there’s no place like the last best place, there’s no place like the last best place, there’s no place like the last best place.
Coyote No. 1 + No. 2
30” x 30”
acrylic on raw canvas
sold.
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Ky No. 1
16” x 12”
sold.
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Ky No. 2
16” x 12”
sold.
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Ky No. 3
16” x 12”
sold.
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![Ky No. 4]()
Ky No. 4
16” x 12”
sold.
Sunset Deck
36” x 28”
acrylic on raw canvas
$950
I worked at the bar for most of my twenties. My lifelong friends were hidden behind the bar, melting back by the grill, and slinging cocktails alongside me. We all hated working the Sunset Deck. The money was good, but when all her tables sat, she was a real bitch. 11 tables of hell and a set of stairs between you and the kitchen. You’d be cut off from the rest of the servers for the night. I’d befriend the bussers my first summer- beg for iced waters and extra hands. By my last there, the Sunset Deck had turned into my play sanctuary. I’d hide Red Bulls behind the legs of tables and leave breadcrumbing scavenger hunts for the other servers to find. We’d play “Dear Diary…” , jotting notes on the back of receipt paper. I’d drop scribbled coasters from her wood beams down onto Sarah while she was talking to tables below. It would break the server survival trance out of her and we’d come back to ourselves. Winter time the deck shut down and the tables would stack; a cemetery of summer. And at the staff Christmas party I’d convince you to climb in them with me, and my heart would feel the same flutter it did when I’d see your name on the schedule. Yes, the sunsets were beautiful. Yellow and orange, they were enough to make you forget you were working and remind you of the privilege in being here, now.
Pattee Canyon
36” x 26”
acrylic on raw canvas
sold
I fell in love on Pattee Canyon. I say that in the most literal sense. You see, 25 feels hard when the leading up years are primarily drunk nights- a self soothing mechanism to avoid all the uncomfortable factors you’ve managed to find comfort in. But I defrosted here- gravel roads, trees, and you in the passenger seat. I still know the ins and outs of the playlist we’d set for the drive. A courage anthem. Once we took your truck off a side road and stopped to throw rocks off the edge and you told me the anatomical names for the parts of the heart. That night I wrote a poem in my sleep about tumbling pebbles down a mountainside cliff, with the closing line I wish they were me in the hands of you. Sometimes I still do. I turn my affections to places more deserving. You inspired me; a past me that no longer exists but a version that set the trajectory of who I am now. Pattee Canyon loop was our way of connecting. These days I connect only in memory. If a winter is harsh and a tree falls down, somewhere in its life lines is an outline of you and me.
Whitaker Drive
38” x 30”
acrylic on raw canvas
$1,200
You can see this street from the 90 if you look hard enough. Straight up cutting into the South Hills. At one point in time, Whitaker Drive was empty at the top. None of these big ass, new money homes. I think this is when I loved her most. Some days when the anxiety was so bad, I’d run up to the top. I’d think of Brittanie and how she was always so damn good at running hills. Whitaker was steep but consistent, and by the time I got to the top, anxiety was a word I didn’t know. I’d sit in the weeds and watch sleep take over the city. Meditation takes new meaning when you're surrounded by the by the mountains in the valley. By definition, Whitaker Drive is a road that takes you to the top of Missoula. To me it's a road where you leave girlhood and land on who you’ll be as a human.
Brennan’s Wave
35”x 35”
acrylic on raw canvas
$1,300
Missoula’s staple, my late night reprieve. It’s 1:00 am and I should sleep. I’ve never been good at goodbyes so I bypass the sloshed drinks and cross Front Street. I’m sorry to everyone I ever vanished on. Down the rocks and under the lookout, I can breathe again. I count the streetlights if I worry or squint my eyes to make them disappear. Sifting through rocks only to find the best to skip, I’d think of the things too scary to face in the daylight. I’ve decided there is a direct correlation between how much time someone spends alone and how developed their core compositions are. Water erodes all things but in this case it was the deposition of all things Mauve.
Griz
54”x 28”
acrylic on raw canvas
$1,400
I can’t speak to anyone’s experience of college, only that of my own. I had my first real dose of depression my freshman year, a byproduct of the trauma that unfolded in my childhood home. I don’t remember most of my freshman year, other than just knowing when I try to pull up memories my body instinctively tells me no, stop, do not enter here. I don’t have a desire to sift through the ashes. What I can say is that in those following years I spent getting my degrees, I had my nose to the grindstone. You learn how to hustle when you’ve got 30 dollars in the bank account and rent due at the end of the week. I fed Brhey cornbread from the last box in the cupboard and shared a bag of craisins for the month of May with Monique. I didn’t know where the end of the tunnel was, but I believed if I put in the work now, I could get somewhere far the hell away from the place I started at. I made it out of the weeds. That’s a lot for any 18 year old kid to brave and I’m glad she did it for the version of me sitting here typing this for you now.
On exhibit at Base Camp Studios December 2023Hours
Friday 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Saturday 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Sunday 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location
2407 1st Ave
Seattle, WA 98121