MAKE the life you DREAM of...

The other day I was scanning my blog stats and I realized that there are a number of site visitors who are not finding one particular thing they were looking for: A more comprehensive "bio" write-up about me, the keeper of this site/blog.

[Did you know I track stats and what you're reading? Yeah... I'm watchin' you... *wink*]

So, since I happen to have the time today seeing as how I am quarantined because of what my doctor calls a "raging case of pink eye that has made [my] eyes ANGRY."  I decided to draft a more comprehensive and current bio. I hope it is more informative than everything else that I have attempted to post to communicate who I am, why I post here, and what my intentions are on and of the whole.

Here we go...

Via instagram | dreampraycreate

Presently, I am a 33 year-old Asian-American lady (gal?) living and working as a private high school art educator and freelance visual artist (photography and visual design)in the DC/Baltimore metro area. I am married to a fella' (gentleman?) originally from Pittsburgh and we have one feisty (and, also, incredibly charming) little preschool daughter.

I am currently in graduate school doing distance learning with Liberty University in an effort to earn a Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in Secondary Education with a concentration in Visual Arts. Since it is seemingly impossible to do studio art work/studies via a distance learning set-up, I am supplementing with visual art classes at a number of local brick-n-mortar colleges. To say that I am a busy individual would be a gross and unfair(!) understatement.

Despite the eight different directions that I am easily pulled in at any given moment, I consider my life and the opportunities I am regularly given a tremendous blessing. Note that I specifically used the word blessing and did not call myself lucky! This is because I also do my best to inform every element of my life and decisions I might make with full-faith in and of Jesus Christ. I consider myself to be an active Christian and the church I attend is of the denomination of Lutheran, Missouri-Synod. As active faith and religion applies to my life, I do my best to read/study scripture but, I confess, I am not the best at it because reading is a really HUGE challenge for me as a result of what is (presently being diagnosed to make it official) an alleged learning disability that I have *apparently* and unknowingly struggled with all my life.

I will admit it - dealing with a learning disability and going through the exhaustive and arduous process of getting it actually diagnosed during my adult years (rather than in my earlier schooling when I could have just gone to the school psychologist) has been neither easy nor cheap. However, I am a firm believer that life's trials and tribulations are designed specifically for the glory of God and to SHOW the way He works every time to make things work out beautifully and amazingly. Call me an optimist or a hopeless dreamer and an illogical believer but my thinking is that if none of it ends up being true, what have I lost? Nothing. Rather, I will still have a whole life filled with nothing less than things of JOYful things that are my marriage and family, a life where I get to not just dream up and make art but also be paid well to do so (and have really decent health insurance to boot).  While I know I certainly don't have it all, I can't help but continuing to feel like I do and (to top it off) that what it all is happens to be absolutely enough.

So that's me (for the most part) in the most present moment. I know I mentioned very little about me as an artist per se but as far as I'm concerned, I still feel like I have kind of talked about the things I create and how and why I create them at that! Personally, I feel like it's important to know where and how an artist comes to be in the first place because it's those details that help you to understand their art that much better. So, I guess? These are my details. Hope they provide a little more explanation about my works (of art and the like) a little bit better/more.