Around that same period, my work was also expanding in other public-facing directions. In June 2020, I began painting on boarded windows in Raleigh—creating removable mural work on plywood during a time when many storefronts were temporarily covered. That work included equALLity, a wood-panel mural installed in the boarded windows of Bishop’s at The Dillon in Raleigh.  Although it came as a volunteer opportunity, it marked my first mural-adjacent public art project.

The next opportunity came through a recommendation from another artist friend. She had been seeing my "Quarantine Creations" on social media and immediately connected what I was doing to a project her friend Jennifer had been looking for help with. That referral led to a Spirit Rock commission at Jennifer’s son’s school—a temporary, community-facing collaboration.

After the recommendation, Jennifer visited my socials, where she found my Quarantine Creations, Painted Rock Garden, and the memorial marker, and asked me to collaborate with her and her son. She served on a school committee and hoped the painted boulder would spark interest among other school families, encouraging it to be repainted month after month in new ways and that in turn would lead to fund raising opportunities.

That Spirit Rock commission which I've titled: "Shared Spirit" was my first paid mural-adjacent public art project in my practice. The live paintings came first, but those were public art made on canvas and now hang in my art studio after COVID closed the public galleries where they had been exhibited

Meanwhile, a couple of neighbors found rocks I had placed locally and noticed my name on the back. One day, they stopped to chat when I was out gardening and then saw the growing collection. They loved them and even chose favorites to place in their own gardens.

The Painted Rock Garden conversations led to other rock-related commissions. First, from a neighbor after her dog passed away. I painted a memorial stone for her featuring both of her dogs together, looking toward the rainbow bridge that one had already crossed and the other would some day follow.

Since the Covid quarantine limited travels I also began placing painted rocks around the neighborhood when I went for my daily walks. By mid 2020 I had painted more than I could place, so I put the extras in a an overflow area - a mulched section by my driveway. Over time, that became what I started calling my "Painted Rock Garden". That in itself became a fun feature. I enjoyed the delight and interest shown to that display by the many delivery drivers that frequented our property over the course of the quarantine. 

In 2020, opportunities still came knocking despite social distancing.

At the time, I was painting rocks—my “Quarantine Creations”—and sharing them on social media. What began as a way to keep occupied and continue creating during quarantine became something more: I used extra supplies bought before stores were closed, found a way to stay connected through art while the world felt paused, and showed people what I was capable of. Even though I wasn’t selling the rocks, painting them helped build skills. I created reels, stories, and posts from those recordings to show my range.  If I could paint these, I could likely paint what they had in mind.

As I painted, I began placing some of the rocks in public spaces for people to find, similar to the kindness rocks project. I painted my artist name, website, and social handles on the bottom, hoping people might keep find and photograph them, post them to their social channels and tag me, or even place them somewhere else for others to discover.

My first opportunity and exposure to a form of public art came through live painting on canvas at IMURJ, a collaborative art space in downtown Raleigh. Beginning April 30, 2019, owner Karl Thor invited me to paint as the pop-up artist during Lively Lunches, their live-streamed live painting series, where the process of creating in real time became part of the public experience itself. I was blessed to be asked to continue as a pop-up artist for several months until I had to pause for holidays and a busy travel schedule only to return at the beginning of Covid, which itself paused all live events, including this one.

Part Preparation, Part Opportunity

My Path to Public Art

In 2021, that path widened again when I first began public chalk art at an event at an Employee Appreciation Event at Elon University in Burlington, North Carolina, working as part of a team with and for another mural artist. From there, I continued into additional chalk commissions and event-based chalk drawings later that year. Chalk brought in another layer of impermanence and interaction—art that could meet people directly underfoot, surprise them in passing, and exist fully in the moment.

Looking back, that path really was part preparation, part opportunity. I was making, experimenting, sharing, and learning before I knew exactly where it would lead. The opportunities that followed did not arrive in isolation—they grew out of the work already in motion, the skills I was building, and the decision to keep creating in visible, public-facing ways even when the future felt uncertain.