November 17, 2025
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I Never Promised You a Rose Garden began at a time when making art felt like the only way to stay connected to myself. After my MS diagnosis, my hands — the tools I had always relied on — became uncertain. Fine motor control, something I’d never questioned before, suddenly demanded attention. I could have stepped back. Instead, I stayed close to the work.
Pointillism became a way to do that. Each dot required focus, patience, and intention. It slowed everything down. It asked me to be present in my body again, even when that body felt unfamiliar. I didn’t choose roses because they were comforting or expected. I chose them because the act of building them, dot by dot, gave me something steady to return to.
Roses hold contradiction. Softness and sharpness exist together. Beauty and resistance share the same stem. That felt honest. The work wasn’t meant to smooth anything over. Some days the process felt meditative. Other days it felt stubborn. Both were true.
What surprised me was how the roses stayed.
Even after my health stabilized — after MS became something I learned to live with rather than react to — I kept returning to them. Not out of necessity anymore, but out of pull. Almost like an obsession. The repetition became familiar. Reassuring. A way of marking time, of checking in, of maintaining control in small, deliberate ways when so much else still felt unpredictable.
The garden that formed wasn’t planned. It grew slowly, unevenly, and without a clear endpoint. Some pieces feel dense and controlled. Others loosen their grip. Together, they reflect a relationship with the body that continues to evolve — not fixed, not resolved, but lived with attention.
This collection isn’t about recovery as a finish line. It’s about endurance. About choosing to keep making even after the urgency has passed. About recognizing that resilience doesn’t disappear once stability returns — it simply changes shape.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden exists in that ongoing space. Where care, repetition, and persistence remain — not because they’re required, but because they’ve become part of how I stay present.