Telling My Story: Why I Became An Artist

(Read my About page to get a quick intro to who I am)

In the past, I have wanted my art to speak for itself. Unfortunately, art can’t actually talk and you can’t read my mind (that second one is probably a good thing). My words create the bridge between what you are seeing and what I intend for you to see. But fear has held me back from sharing. The fear of being misunderstood and of no one caring about what I have to say. The fear of being vulnerable. Sharing a painting is easy, but sharing my feelings? Not so much.

I haven’t been good at telling my story, partly because I didn’t feel like anyone would care and because I hadn’t figured out what my story was. It felt disjointed, and so my art felt that way by extension. This past year I took a step back from sharing at all, and although it feels difficult to bring myself out of it, that break has been necessary to understanding what is creatively important to me and helping me to figure out my “why.” What I’ve come to realize is that my story is just me, all the messy and non-linear bits included.

Despite the inconsistencies and lack of sharing, you have supported me. You show up to markets, buy or share my work, and come to my workshops. I keep returning to share because you are still here.

Because making art in a vacuum is no fun.

The feedback and the stories I hear from you and how you relate to my art make it all worth it. Seeing my art in the world making an impact to help habitats and wildlife that I care about makes it worth it.

Being a professional artist was always there in the back of my mind. A dream life that I didn’t think I could have, despite my artistic upbringing. I grew up in a house where making art was something everyone did. We had a closet full of art supplies and went to art camps in the summer. As a kid I carried around sketchbooks to family meals out so that I could draw while waiting for the food to arrive. I have always been creating in some form.

Still, art never felt like something I was good enough at to pursue as a career. I didn’t think I had “it”— that special, unquantifiable and truthfully nonexistent “thing” that non-artists think artists have that make them good at art. What artists actually have is the desire to pursue and improve our artistic skills, regardless of where we started out.

My own career journey has taken a winding path. As a kid I wanted to be an astronaut, a librarian, and an archaeologist; an artist, a marine biologist, and a writer. I have many interests, and it’s been a struggle my entire life to figure out how to pursue all of them at once. What has guided me through all of the twists and turns has been my passion for animals and nature. I honestly can’t remember when it started, other than a trip to Hawaiʻi when I was eleven where I spent the days reading a field guide to tropical fish and conducting “field studies” of the local ponds.

Growing up within two hours drive of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I was lucky enough to be part of their teen programs, which help middle school and high school students pursue career tracks in marine science education, tech, husbandry and more.

Volunteering at the aquarium was life-changing for me, as it is for many teens and adults alike. It kindled in me a deep passion for conserving our wild spaces and species, and gave me life tools that I still use to this day.

I eventually made it to college with the intent of studying creative writing at the beautiful forested campus of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Though I had never had much interest in birds in the past other than hawks and herons, a friend convinced me to take Ornithology 101 with them in our second year. That course sparked my interest in birds and put me back on the path to studying biology and wildlife, but at the expense of my creative life.

The scientist part of me and the artist part of me felt disparate for a long time. One felt like a serious pursuit, and the other a fun hobby that I wasn’t great at. Evergreen is an interdisciplinary school where programs combine things like art and science, teaching students to bridge these academic gaps in the real world. But it wasn't until years after college that I really put that into action. It’s interesting how sometimes the things we learn take a long time to percolate in us.

After college, I moved back to California, to the place I had wanted to live since I was a kid: Monterey Bay. There’s something magical in the rocky coastlines and vibrant teal waters of Monterey. The unique geography and geology of this place makes for an incredibly biodiverse corner of California. The color palette, the salty sea fog, the amazing and abundant wildlife. All of it draws me in and captivates me.

Capturing the color palette of the coastline, Brandt's cormorants in oil paint (Morgan Lewis 2025)

I’ve been visiting the Monterey and Carmel since before I can remember, and it has entwined itself in my being as one of those integral places to my identity. If you take me apart, you will find the salt and the kelp and the wildness of this place are as much a part of me as my blood and bones.

Though I loved my four years in Washington state and miss it often, California is my home. Not the arbitrary state lines or laws, but the rocks and the water; the trees and the animals. They are a huge source of my inspiration and drive to create.

What comes next is familiar to all of us. Three years after I graduated college, a virus began to spread across the world and all of our lives changed forever.

Around the same time, my life was already changing. I was experiencing chronic joint and muscle pain as well as other symptoms that had been present my whole life but had taken a turn for the worse after I had pneumonia in 2018.

In fall of 2020 I was diagnosed with a connective tissue disorder called hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. As the years have passed, I’ve collected a few more diagnoses. I have often felt that to talk about it would seem like I was complaining, or invite pity and the well-meaning "I hope you feel better soon." I know it is meant well but the unfortunate truth is that although some things have improved with treatment, I’m not ever going to get completely better and some things will likely get worse.

My biggest limitations currently are general chronic pain, post-exertional malaise, and declining hand function. I have chronic nerve issues in both arms which causes burning pain as well as muscle weakness and failing grip. The joints and tendons holding my hands together are loose and bendy, meaning I lack the stability needed to keep my fingers from bending at wrong angles. This causes pain and grinding in my joints.

I hide these things well, so you probably won’t notice them if you meet me or even if we are friends. My disability is also dynamic, so some days I feel okay and some days not.

Repetitive, tiny motions with my hands are very difficult. Holding a pen or paint brush steady and making fine detail marks is nearly impossible. This is why you won’t see a lot of fine detail work in my pieces and why my lines are often sloppy.

Experiencing health challenges that made me have to quit my previous job is what made me decide to take the risk with art. If it turned into a paying job, great! If not, at least I enjoyed it. I didn’t have anything to lose. In a way I feel almost grateful to my disability for granting me the courage to try something I always wanted to do.

Recently I've started creating bigger works. Going big with my pieces helps me to do more without taxing my hands as much. This summer I started painting with oils, and I’m finding much more ease with it than with other mediums, though I can still only paint for a couple of hours a day and not every day.

Oil painting of a great blue heron (Morgan Lewis 2025)

Thus is the continual process of reinvention - as my health changes, different forms of art become more or less accessible to me and I am learning to adapt instead of abandon. This makes creating a brand identity (something even artists have to do) very difficult. But I’ve realized that simply by telling the true story of my life and my art and how they intersect, I give you something you can identify with. Because you are human too, and we are both living a human existence which is full of pain and suffering but also joy and beauty.

 This past year I’ve been a bit of social recluse, even more so than usual. As my hand function has declined, driving has become difficult, and so has doing much of anything. I’m grateful for the times when people reached out to offer work or social opportunities even when I wasn’t always able to say yes.

I’m very lucky to have the support of my family whom I live with and who help me with everyday tasks, and that I’m able to work on my art when my body allows it. “The hustle” is physically impossible for me, so the only way I am able to work at all is with their help.

There are many who consider living with your parents at age thirty to be a failing, and while it isn’t where I expected to be in my life at this point, I also see it as a gift to have their support. It is a constant reminder that we are all interdependent on each other in some way, and that it’s okay to lean into those bonds. In fact it is vital and necessary to life.

It reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in the X-Files, where Scully says "you must dare to dream, but […] there's no substitute for perseverance and hard work, and teamwork, because no one gets there alone.” No one gets there alone. Scully might be referring to the Apollo 11 mission and working with her FBI partner Mulder to uncover alien conspiracies, but the same applies to living our everyday lives and to creating art. It is a team effort. I, the artist, and you, the audience.

We are a team and together we make the art what it is. Art gathers meaning with the way it interacts with the world. Similarly, I can put in that perseverance and hard work because I have a team of people supporting me, from my parents to my friends to my doctors.

So what is the meaning I want to give my work? What purpose do I want it to serve in the world?

On the one hand, I truly think that art doesn’t need to have a purpose other than to exist and be beautiful. But I do want my art to engage with the world in a way that aligns with my other passions. Art has historically been a catalyst for change, and I want to contribute to that legacy.

With art, I have found a way to combine my creativity and my interests in wildlife biology, natural history, and conservation. I can explore the natural world without going anywhere, and I can share my love of and connection with nature with others. I save up my photographs and memories for those days when I can’t go out and be in nature. I research my favorite species and use them to create works of art. In turn, I feel more connected to the world around me.

After struggling for years to reconcile those disparate parts of myself, science and art, they have come together in a beautiful way.

Though I am not physically able to do things like field research and other jobs involved in the conservation of our wild spaces, I can still be a part of those projects. By creating art in collaboration with nonprofits, like the Point Pinos Seawatch project logo for Monterey Audubon Society I can help support research and conservation projects that I’m passionate about.

In my personal work, I love to highlight local species I’m interested in, helping to spread awareness and love of nature. I am so lucky to live in beautiful Carmel Valley, and to be surrounded by wild spaces where I feel a part of nature without having to leave my home. I still get out as often as I am able, but living so closely with nature has helped inspire my art further.

Recently, my main focus has been on drawing and painting birds. I run a monthly bird drawing workshop with Monterey Audubon Society, and most of my art for sale at the moment is of birds.

I get a lot of “so, you really like birds, huh?” at art markets. Yes, I really do! But why birds?

Stay tuned for part two to find out why I love birds, why I paint them, and more about my inspiration and creative process.

Want to see more of my work? Check out my portfolio, follow me on Instagram and sign up for my e-newsletter to be notified about new blog posts, learn about current projects, and take a peek into my creative life.