New Horizons

2025, a brand new year. I can hardly believe it.

We last left off sometime in September. Summer had just given way to fall and I was catching my stride again back in the studio painting vibrant and colorful summer still life portraits, a bit of a deviation from my normal subject matters and style but a fun experiment and exercise in stretching my creativity. The focus and theme of last year, as you are well aware if you have been reading here and following along, was seasons. And I would be remiss to not close out that journey with final chapter and thoughts on the fall and harvest season where we last met especially headed into a new calendar year.

This fall I was given the incredible opportunity to join the Well + Wonder artist collective come the beginning of the 2025 calendar year and began exploring and painting my first debut collection for them the theme of which was discussed with Well + Wonder to be “moody landscapes” that leaned into the idea of seasons and winter with a launch date slotted for January 15th. When the words first came out of their mouths mine dropped. What an incredible God wink! The irony of my first ever solo artist collection debut on another platform dedicated to the theme of winter. The very subject, literally and figuratively, that I had been wrestling with for the better part of a year, plus. To take it a step further, God is so in the details, January 15th, 2024 was quite possibly my lowest of low moments. Barely six months without my mom, fresh off of our first holiday season without her, and deeply and desperately battling many inner demons with some paralleled personal struggles and trying to crawl my way out of the mud and pick up the pieces of my life. That very weekend of the 15th in 2024 I had joined my husband on a trip to the NC coast, our happy place, on a work trip. I had just needed some time and space to process and knew I could do it there in an empty house while he was working with the cold and quite of the wintertime marsh. At the very last minute, I decided to grab my watercolor paints. I hadn’t picked up my brushes in almost a year and a half at that point which was really hard to believe. That beach trip changed a lot for me. I went on long walks, wrestled with God, buried some dreams in the sand, found a podcast episode and a new friend through it that changed the trajectory of some things for me…and I started to paint again. January 2024 brought a culmination of struggles and one particular encounter shortly after that beach weekend that sent me completely spiraling…and straight into therapy. Thank God. It defined a really bottom of the barrel moment for me.

And now, a year later to the very date, January 15th 2025, I got to release 18 works (symbolizing the 18 weeks between first signing on and the debut date) that would represent my journey with winter. Wow.

Neither those 18 weeks nor the debut on the 15th tied everything up in a nice neat bow. In fact, during those weeks we encountered the devastating loss Hurricane Helene brought to loved ones, we navigated holidays year two without mom (which if you know anyone who has experienced loss can be almost harder than year one), we encountered new jobs and the changes that brings, twists and turns in other personal and health related journeys, a reshuffling of relationships. But I found myself on that January 15th strengthened with a deeper, more lasting fortitude and gratitude than ever before for the scrapes and bruises covering my heart and the exhaustion and wind burn plastered on my face that it took to get there.

I often struggled with the wait. Why not now, God? But I am learning that the wrestling season is perhaps more important than the answer to prayer, whether that be “yes” or “no.” Also, God cares more about my healing journey than I seem to, which is an awful lot. I’d quick change into the next season yesterday if I could. But we are taking the long road to get there. And I’m learning to find the beauty there as hard as it may be.

A bit about the collection, which you can now find here:

Inspired by the vastness in the marsh speckled landscapes of her beloved North Carolina shore, Christina sought to reframe the often associated bustling sundrenched summer seasons with a vantage of stillness and rest. A pause to lean in as harvest gives way to wintering seasons both literally and figuratively and to seek the softness of moments found on the endless horizon lines, tucked away in the withering cord grass on the quieter waters, and piercing through the moody contrast of light and dark as the fleeting moments of daylight dance in brilliant displays only to be found by those willing to brave the icy cold sea breeze to find them…

…Referencing her many treasured memories and captured moments of hushed rest, respite, and reprieve at her family’s beach place along the North Carolina shore in the off season, Christina utilized her favored painting techniques of impressionist style brushstrokes layered with delicate color washes in varying opacities of watercolor and gouache on loose canvas or handmade paper to evoke these fleeting moments of beauty tucked away among the cold. Varying degrees of perspective and proximity emphasizing the horizon line along with a range of color stories and level of detail help you travel through the coastal winter season as it unfolds experiencing the range of motion or stillness in the air and unadulterated beauty found in the glassy reflections there.

Here are some studio snippets from my 18 week journey through the harvest season to produce fruit for the dead of winter. Thank you for joining me along the way!

XX,

Christina