life, in lines
life, in lines
the art of where our lives meet
We begin each life as a line.
At first it is simple.
And then we meet one another.
our lines cross.
some travel beside us for decades.
others touch ours only briefly.
they bend, wander, separate and sometimes find one another again.
every meeting leaves something behind.
eventually, a life becomes a beautiful collection of intersections.
my work begins where their lines meet
the heartbeat points
I think of the places where our lines meet as heartbeat points — the intersections where one life has touched another and neither continues quite as it was before.
In these pieces, the lines are not mine. They belong to the people whose lives, memories, love, joy, gratitude and grief created them.
My work begins where their lines meet.
I sit with those intersections, rounding and softening them, following what has already been placed on the page and allowing something new to emerge.
I don't create the connections. I reveal them.
how this practice found me
Long before I understood what this practice might become, it began as a way of finding my way back to myself — and to other people.
In 2022, after years of pandemic isolation had left so many of us feeling as though we had stopped fully living, I created a gathering called Women, Wisdom & Watercolor. We met around tables at Whole Foods, where I had worked, sometimes tucked into the Pub and sometimes outside on the patio when the weather allowed.
We made art. We talked. We laughed. Mostly, we gathered.
It was through women in that original circle that I was introduced to neurographic art, a meditative drawing practice built around free-flowing lines and the softening of their intersections.
At first, it was simply fun.
Then life got louder.
The lingering anxiety of the pandemic. My mother's declining health and dementia. Worry for people I loved. The ordinary pressures of a life that sometimes felt anything but ordinary.
I began returning to the lines.
I drew while sitting with Grandmother Cacao. I drew when I needed quiet. I drew when my thoughts needed somewhere else to go. Eventually I began sharing the practice in cacao circles, with friends and at retreat.
There are stacks of these pieces in my home — experiments in color and pattern, landscapes and trees, abstract pieces, even the beginnings of an oracle deck that may yet find its way into the world someday.
But in September of 2023, the lines asked something entirely different of me.
when the lines became something more
A dear friend passed away.
The night before his celebration of life, I woke with my mind spinning.
I suddenly understood that this art practice I had been using to quiet my own mind could become something else entirely — a way to make visible the invisible connections created by one human life.
I didn't completely know what I was doing yet. I only knew that I needed a large piece of watercolor paper, some black markers, and the people who had loved him.
At his celebration, I taped a 20-by-30-inch sheet of watercolor paper to a table. I placed a few simple instructions beside it and drew the first line.
Then I invited everyone there to add one of their own.
Before touching marker to paper, I asked each person to think about one of the very best moments they had ever shared with him — a memory that brought love, laughter or gratitude — and then allow that memory to travel through their hand and become a line.
One by one, the lines accumulated.
They crossed. They wandered. They collided. They traveled alongside one another. And near the end of the gathering, his wife added her line.
When the evening was over, I carefully lifted the paper from the table, slipped it into my watercolor-paper bag and brought it home.
And then I left it there.
I couldn't work on it yet.
There was something different about this piece. What had begun as blank watercolor paper was now carrying the marks of an entire room of people who had stood before it remembering someone they loved.
revealing what was already there
A few days later, when I finally felt ready, I mounted the paper onto foam board and sat down with it.
For nearly eight hours, I followed the lines.
I rounded their intersections. I softened the places where one crossed another. I began revealing what I now think of as the heartbeat points — all those places where separate lives had met because of one person.
And I laughed.
I cried.
At times, I sobbed.
Then I laughed again.
I wasn't creating the emotion in the piece. It had already been placed there.
Every person who had drawn a line had brought a memory with them. Love was there. Joy was there. Gratitude was there. And because this was goodbye, grief was there too.
I was simply the person sitting with all of it, allowing the intersections to reveal themselves.
I was the conduit.
That first piece changed my understanding of the practice completely.
The lines weren't simply marks on paper anymore.
They were evidence.
Evidence that we had been here. That we had met. That we had loved. That our lives had touched.
When I created another piece after my own father's passing, the practice revealed another layer.
Grief is rarely one simple emotion. It can hold love and loss, gratitude and longing, laughter and sadness — sometimes all at once.
As I worked with the lines created by those who had known and loved my father, the process became part of my own grieving as well.
It reminded me that these pieces don't need to make a life neat or uncomplicated.
They simply hold what was given to the page with love.
when the lines became a blessing
A few months later, I found myself returning to this practice for an entirely different reason.
After my parents passed through the veil, I moved into the home they had left me. On Lughnasadh, I opened its doors and invited friends to gather for a house blessing.
At the very center of the house is a wall that forms one of its main structural points — a place that quite literally helps connect and support the home.
It felt like exactly the right place to leave something behind.
So I invited everyone to write on the wall.
Yes. The actual wall.
I asked each person to think of something they were deeply grateful for and, while holding that gratitude, draw a line.
There was something wonderfully mischievous about watching a room full of adults realize they had just been given permission to do the thing most of us had been forbidden to do as a child.
Draw on the walls.
The energy was positively giddy.
One line became another. Gratitude crossed gratitude. Lives intersected lives. And slowly, the center of my home became covered with the marks of the people who had come to bless it.
when the evening was over and everyone went home, I sat and stared at the wall. it was a lot, but it was so full of life, love and gratitude. I returned to the wall over the coming days and began completing the heartbeat points, rounding and tending the places where all of those lives and all of that gratitude had intersected.
I laughed out loud while I worked. I cried, too — overwhelmed at times by the depth of gratitude I felt for every person who had stood in that room and left something of themselves behind.
we lived with those lines for nearly two years.
then, I did something that might seem strange.
I painted over it.
Not to erase it.
To seal it in.
The lines are no longer visible, but I know exactly where they are.
Beneath the paint, held inside the central structure of my home, are the intentions and gratitude of everyone who helped bless it.
Invisible does not mean gone.
why wait until goodbye?
For a long time, I understood these lines primarily through remembrance.
They gave us a way to see the connections left behind by someone we loved.
But the gratitude wall changed something for me.
Standing in front of all those intersecting lines, I began to wonder:
Why should we wait until someone is gone to show them how many lives they have touched?
Why not gather the people we love while they are still here?
Why not give them the chance to stand before the evidence of a life being lived — to see the friendships, families, generations, communities and loves that have crossed their path and become part of their story?
A wedding.
An anniversary.
A milestone birthday.
A retirement.
A family gathered across generations.
A new life being welcomed into the world.Or perhaps no milestone at all.
Perhaps sometimes being here together is reason enough.
Life, in lines is not only about remembering a life that was.
It is about witnessing a life that is.
your life, in lines
Every Life, In Lines piece begins with people.
The form it takes will depend upon the life being celebrated and the reason everyone has gathered.
It might begin with two hands and two lines meeting in the center as two people begin a marriage.
It might hold the lines of generations of women, each one carrying something forward from the women who came before her.
It might gather around a milestone birthday, an anniversary, a retirement, a new beginning or simply the recognition that there are people in our lives worth celebrating while they are here to experience it.
And sometimes, it will still begin with goodbye.
There is no single template for a Life, In Lines piece because there is no single template for a human life.
how it begins
Together, we will talk about the person, people or moment the piece is meant to honor and create a simple starting point for the artwork.
At your gathering, the people whose lives are part of that story will be invited to add their own lines while holding a memory, an intention, gratitude or connection in mind.
No artistic ability is needed.
There is no wrong line.
When the gathering is over, the collective drawing comes back to me.
Before I begin working with the lines, I create a ritual space around them.
sit with Grandmother Cacao. I light a candle. I call upon my guides and ancestors, and make space for those connected to the lives held on the page.
I don't ask for answers or messages. I simply ask to be open enough to listen, grounded enough to receive, and clear enough to follow what the lines are already showing me.
Then I begin.
Slowly, I follow the lines exactly as they were given to me, rounding their intersections and revealing the heartbeat points already waiting there.
I don't create the connections. I reveal them.
Because each piece is created slowly and individually by hand, I accept only a small number of Life, In Lines commissions at a time.
begin a conversation
If there is a life, relationship, gathering or moment you would like to make visible, tell me about it.
You do not need to know exactly what the finished artwork should look like.
In fact, neither do I.
The people who gather will begin the story.
The lines will tell us the rest.