How Small Moments Shape Beautiful Spaces

This past month has been one of transition for me—settling into a new home, a new painting studio, a new rhythm of creating. If you’ve been following along on my more frequent updates on Instagram, you know I recently moved, and with that shift has come a deep appreciation for the way a space we inhabit can hold us.  How it shapes our days, and how the small, intentional details can make a home feel like a sanctuary. If you're reading this, fellow art lover, I know you already understand from creating your own spaces.

 I’ve set up a corner of a room as my my new painting studio lately, as hellebores bloom on the desk from my latest urban-foraging excursion.  The longer light, the warmth of the season returning, the green unfurling—it all feels like an invitation to create, to listen, to let the world around inform the work. There is something so simple yet profound about making space for inspiration, about allowing creativity to take root in the everyday.

Ten years ago, I helped a friend set her wedding tables with piles and piles of hellebores in glass over linen.“The first hope of spring, always coming up first to spill their beauty over the muck of winter.” I can still hear her voice & every year when I see these blooms, I think of her.

She was the first person to take proper, professional photos of my art and my studio—capturing my dream and making it feel just a little more real through her lens. She was effortlessly graceful and so completely cool, just like the hellebores.

I remember one sweaty summer day, we were playing with cyanotypes in the Georgia countryside, and she paused to photograph the tender roots of a little cover plant like they were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. 

And I remember feeling sort of out of body watching someone else get completely wrapped up in the beauty of the world, in the same way I often do.

 Just never underestimate the way sharing your creativity and inspiration might impact someone else.

I am forever grateful to have gotten to share in these moments where creativity spilled over the muck of life and everything was beautiful for a just a little while.

Because creativity isn’t just about what we make—it’s about how we live. The way we notice light shifting across a room, the way we gather around a table, the way we arrange fresh flowers or decorate a mantle or hang our art that stirs something in us. These small, intentional moments shape our spaces into places of beauty, places of rest. They remind us that home is not just where we live but where we create life, where we find inspiration, where we make room for what matters in the simple, powerful and mundane ways. 

While I paint, I've been considering this— the way art can transform a space, how a single piece can shift the feeling of a room. Art is an invitation to slow down, to reminisce, to notice, to wonder…. to let beauty fill the quiet corners of our days. Just as the hellebores return each spring, offering a quiet but certain beauty, art can hold space for those moments of stillness and reflection.  Isn't that so tender and good?