03/11/2026
Hey there everyone.
Most of you here on Facebook or Instagram already know me. You may know me from childhood, school, or through family. Because I post art from time to time, you might simply think of me as someone who likes to paint.
So today I decided to get on camera and tell you a little more about what that’s actually about.
For as long as I can remember I’ve experienced life very vividly and deeply. For me, life doesn’t start in my head. It’s first felt in the body, sensed in the spirit, and visualized as texture and color. Only after that does it slowly build into concrete thought and eventually words.
I’m making a little fun of myself there—but seriously, by the time I’m communicating my thoughts, they’re usually packed with a lot of granular information. Not always the most efficient process when you’re just trying to get dressed and out the door or keep an essay under 500 words.
If you know me, you also know I can talk… and process verbally for literal hours.
Because of this superpower—or handicap—I think I became fast friends with line, shape, color, and texture early in life. I mostly encountered these things in nature, where I felt a deep sense of peace and resonance with the earth around me.
That adaptation brings me here now, recording this video.
Through conversations with people over the years, I’ve realized that many people have a fairly controlled relationship with what they feel. I, on the other hand, have often felt like feelings simply walk into my body and announce what we’re doing for the day. My full-time job then becomes learning how to live with the unexpected visitor who slowly becomes a close companion.
When I paint, I’m not really reaching for color. I’m making physical what cannot be touched—but still needs to be addressed, guided, and welcomed.
And when I paint, I’m not actually trying to make something beautiful. The magic is that authenticity is beautiful.
Also, as a Dutch woman raised in the country and on the mission field—and as Marilyn’s daughter—I don’t tend to do much for show. And I don’t like to waste anything.
So where does that leave me?
It leaves me with a simple calling: to make with my hands the movement of the heart.
The strokes on my canvas are often led by the movement of pain, lacking, or longing- this is felt in my body. I create space to grieve to imagine and to simply feel things that others may suppress or move past quickly. In my past it this long taxing process has felt too heavy, at this point however I have begun to understand the value here. That’s why my art is costly. It cost me something to make it.
But in the making, it also sets me free.
And sometimes when someone truly pauses and beholds a piece… it opens that same kind of freedom in them too.
Here is your Open Invitation
Turn the volume on🔊so that you do not miss the invitation.
I look forward to hearing from you if you would like to chat more about what this intentional creative artwork could hold for you.
Olivia
