I was born in Wisconsin, in a little town called Spirit. When I was five years old my family moved out to Montana. I love the mountains and have made so many good memories of being out in God's beautiful creation with my family, whether it was hiking in the mountains, swimming in the creek, collecting rocks along the lake shoreline, or exploring country dirt roads.
Ever since I was a little girl I have enjoyed drawing. I started out primarily with colored pencils, and also enjoyed using graphite from time to time. I loved to draw animals and would spend hours using How-to-Draw Animals books with the step-by-step tutorials. As I got older, I began to experiment with different mediums. One milestone in growing in my artistic skills happened when I was 12 years old, when a good friend of my mom's started a book club with a few other girls in our homeschool group. We would get together once a week and discuss the assigned chapters in the book we were reading, and afterwards this lady would teach all of the girls an art class. She had taken art in college and was very talented. Each week she would teach on a different medium, and taught us different techniques to use with that medium. She would give us an art assignment to do for the week with whatever medium we had learned about, in addition to chapters in the book we were reading. I learned so much that summer and was able to grow a lot in my creativity. Some of the assignments and mediums that she had us do I really enjoyed, and there were also some that I did not particulaly enjoy; I had pretty much only used colored pencils up to that point and that was what I liked best, as that was what I was used too, but she introduced us to things that I had never tried before. Honestly it helped me grow in being more disciplined, as regardless if I enjoyed the assignment or not, I still needed to apply what I had learned and have a finished art piece by the end of the week. The last day of the art class she took all of us girls to an art class at a community college. The art professor gave us a tour of the classroom and his studio, and each of his students shared on art pieces that they had there. It was so fun and I would have to say that that summer was a pivotal moment in my artistic endeavors, and a lot of the techniques this lady taught us I still use today.
Fast forward a few years and I was still painting and drawing. But then when I was 14 I went through a rather dark season in life; not that I ever got involved in anything dark or the wrong crowd of people. No, we were homeschooled and were very sheltered, but I struggled with some pretty intense fears and anxieties growing up and they really came to a head when I was 14. At this time we were discovering the Hebrew roots of our faith and a lot was shifting in our beliefs and family dynamics. I felt very confused and was consumed with fear, shame and guilt, which sapped me of all my energy and focus, which left no room for creativity. I had no inspiration and whenever I would try to draw or paint, there was no life in the finished art piece; just colors and shapes that had no feeling or emotion. Needless to say, it was quite depressing. But when I turned 18, things began to get better; I started working a job at an assisted living, and just being out of the house, working with and serving other people and learning new skills really helped me to start breaking out of my shell. It was also around this time that God was giving me artistic ideas and inspiration, and that is when I started to do artwork that contained deep Biblical and prophetic meaning. After years of being in what felt like a dark cloud, I enjoyed being creative and my art had life in it once again. Almost all of my pictures now contain a lion in them; when I was young I loved the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Louis and just loved Aslan, and I loved to draw pictures of Narnia and Aslan. I feel that that helped fuel the inspiration to put lions in all of my paintings. :)
In 2019 my family attented a Feast of Sukkot gathering in southeast Missouri hosted by Love and Purity Ministries. That one feast caused a huge sequence of events, including the turning point in my family where things that had been shrouded in darkness came to the light. My sister and I moved to the ministry campus to attend several classes and to help serve during events, and during our time there I experienced some huge breakthroughs, including the largest one on Yom Kippur where all of the chains of fear that had been holding me prisoner fell away and I finally felt truly free. I got baptized that winter and also experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Later that same winter I started a relationship with a young man, and we got betrothed and married in the spring of 2022. My husband and love of my life, Boaz Sundquist and I have been married three years now and we have three beautiful children. My husband is a very skilled musician and blacksmith and we love playing music and leading worship together. We currently live on the road in a motorhome; life is crazy and fun and awesome! :) Yet even in the busyness and often crazy days I really try to take time to do what I enjoy, and that is to paint and create artwork that glorifies our Creator. Honestly, it has been a dream of mine to have a ministry through selling my artwork, and it is hard to believe that that dream is finally coming true! If it wasn't for my amazing husband who spent hours and many long nights building this website, none of this probably would have happened, and I am so thankful! My advice to anyone reading this is to delight yourself in Yahweh, and He will give you the desires of your heart. He placed in you those dreams that you carry in your heart; give them back to Him and see what He can do. His plans for you are to prosper and His plans are always good.