About Kelly
I believe life itself is a work of art. This way of living becomes our offering, …
My life is my art.
Hey, I’m Kelly. I’m a multidisciplinary artist, writer, poet, coach, therapeutic arts practitioner, beauty seeker, master naturalist, environmental educator, quote collector, avid reader, and professional noticer of things most people walk right past.
I believe life itself is a work of art.
I weave together art, beauty, story work, nature, play, contemplative practices, and soul care through transformative workshops, one-on-one coaching, retreat experiences, and by creating spaces for healing, becoming, and noticing the wonder found in the ordinary. I host virtual and in-person workshops in the Wake Forest, North Carolina area, where I live with my hubby, three busy kiddos, and Louis Armstrong, our Irish Wolfhound/German Shepherd mix.
My art includes collage and mixed media with a focus on intuitive, expressive arts and art journaling, poetry, photography, writing, nature journaling, environmental education, guided journaling, teaching creative workshops, coaching, mindfulness and listening practices, as well as how I show up for others, myself, and God, and how I live my life as a work of art.
I deeply desire to help others see that there is a different way…
I believe God is continually inviting us into a different way of living, one that makes us feel most alive and aligned with our purpose in life.
And I believe that when we are living out of alignment with His purpose, we carry within us a deep inner exhaustion and longing for something more. Most of us can’t name it, or don’t take the time to sit with the discomfort long enough to search for meaning in it. Instead, we live on auto-pilot, allowing our dreams and desires to become hijacked by our dysregulated nervous systems as we bulldoze through our days and keep ordering the next best product to help us feel better that ultimately doesn’t help with what we most need.
Seeing. Creating. Being.
This different way of living begins with God’s invitation to see, to create, and to be. And the fruit of this accepted invitation leads to a more meaningful, purpose-driven, full, freeing, and abundant life. Yes, a life like this does exist! The cool thing is, when we are living this way, we become witnesses and contributors of heaven meeting earth every. single. day. not just in the glorious, obvious scenes of life, but also in the mundane and ordinary.
This way of living can only happen when we step into the version of ourselves that God created us to be – our true selves – and live from that person. We shed the many false selves we’ve practiced, for some of us, our entire lives, and start practicing this version of ourselves that is the most life-giving and leads us to a John 10:10 “life to the full”. We don’t have to become anything. We have already been created to be that person. “The work” is to release everything that is not really you so you can BECOME who you were created to be.
This is an on-going practice; you don’t suddenly arrive. It’s living with an awareness, spaciousness, intentionality, and into your belovedness as a dearly, deeply loved child of God.
It’s also not self-help. It involves total reliance, surrender, death, and resurrection to allow God to heal and release the wounded parts of you that steered you away from your true self to begin with. Then, relying on the grace and strength to confidently live as your true self in a broken world, allowing God to use your unique strengths, gifts, and talents to love and serve others in a unique way that only you can.
Seeing.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light” - Matthew 6:22
It begins with a “healthy eye” or an inner perceptive world - our minds/thoughts, hearts/motives, and consciences - that are clear, undivided, and focused on God. A healthy eye leads to a life of actions guided and illuminated by truth.
Slowing down to pay attention to your life is a spiritual practice. Noticing is collecting evidence of God’s beauty in everything. The more we learn to notice, the more we discover that God’s fingerprints have been present all along.
Seeing is your loved ones well-earned laugh lines, words that nurture, October’s lavender skies, honest conversations, the dancing shadow on your bedroom wall from a soft, filtered sunrise through the tree in your backyard, your heavy heart, sun ray striped coquina shells, old patterns resurfacing, a warm smile given or received at the perfect timing, wildflowers pressed between book pages, the quivering in a friend’s voice, a reflection off the dragonfly’s wing….and in all of this, we can find God’s Holy Presence.
Part of my transformational journey is healing my sight by addressing old attachment wounds, negative thinking patterns, and core beliefs that were not in alignment with the way God created me. I like to describe this as wearing a pair of trauma-tinted lenses. When these go unaddressed, it’s as if you see everything – including yourself, others, and God – through trauma-tinted lenses and not the way they truly are. Healing cleans those lenses to help you see more clearly.
Creating.
“Instead, we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.” – Ephesians 2:10
As image bearers of the Most Creative, I believe creativity is woven into all our very beings and not reserved for only artists. We are created to create our lives as a living masterpiece or as God’s poem, to use two other translations of Ephesians 2:10. This way of living becomes our offering to a dark, broken, and hurting world. And when we use our talents, skills, experiences, and gifts that God has given to us to create this masterpiece life, it’s our gift back to God. It’s how we glorify Him.
Creating is the intentional rhythms of your day, the art you make and the many ways you make it, the meals you prepare and the hospitality to serve, how you organize a sales report or a pantry, how you take thoughts captive to align them with truth and create new thoughts, how you walk in a room, how you comfort another, how you tell a story or a joke, how you lead a meeting or a group, the route you take, the relationship you cultivate with your customers, a date night, a work out…and in all of this, we create a life of good things that God planned for us.
Being.
“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.” – 1 John 3:1
For many years, I spent more energy becoming who I thought I should be than discovering who God had already created me to be. Healing has taught me that transformation isn't about striving, it's about surrender. It's about becoming rooted in our identity as beloved children of God and allowing everything else to grow from there.
For me, this part took the longest and is still ongoing. It’s incredibly challenging to live in this loud, distraction-filled world where chaos seems to be the new norm. Slowing down, paying attention, noticing God’s presence, and listening to His voice is a counter-cultural way of being.
I love this idea that Christians should look like a bunch of weirdos in the world, with everyone else doing all the same things. Sign me up; I’m here for that!
Beauty From Ashes
I have always been someone who notices.
As a little girl, while everyone else wore Christmas red, I convinced my mom to let me wear my favorite purple outfit on stage. Looking back, I smile because that little girl already knew something I've spent the rest of my life rediscovering - that God delights in the unique ways He has created each of us.
For many years, I stepped away from art and pursued business. But during one of the hardest seasons of my life, God gently led me back to creativity. What began as a survival mechanism became worship, then ministry. Through painting, poetry, journaling, and the practice of noticing beauty, He met me in places words alone never could.
The past several years have included profound loss, chronic illness, trauma, and circumstances I never would have chosen. Yet I've witnessed firsthand that God truly makes beauty from ashes. He wastes nothing. Much of what I now teach has been learned in the quiet places where He faithfully met me.
Today, I create and lead from that place of hope.
Whether I'm gathering wildflowers on a morning walk, filling journals with prayers, leading a creative workshop, coaching someone one-on-one, or marveling over a butterfly wing with my family, I'm continually reminded that beauty isn't a luxury, it is one of God's sustaining graces.
Everything I offer is an invitation to slow down, notice His presence, embrace the person He created you to be, and discover that healing and wonder often grow together.
Kelly in the Wild
I once sang in the car for 5 hours straight on a drive back from the beach, and was sad when our family finally arrived home because I wanted to keep singing. I love karaoke and have posted a few of our family’s caraoke posts on Instagram. Derrick and I enjoy practicing karaoke in the car on date nights and have a playlist of songs that we would be ready to sing for karaoke if and when the opportunity presents itself. One of my faves: Vision of Love by Mariah Carey, though I can’t hit those high notes. One of our faves together: Come Sail Away by Styx (that’s what we were singing in the photo on a cruise ship).
I love the cornchip smell of my dog’s paws. Although, I have learned that means they have fungus or something and I should probably treat it.
I grew up exposed to lots of various GREAT music and enjoy sharing my diverse taste with my children and teaching them what great music really is. While he was living, my maternal grandfather, an army major, taught me all about WWII music and that’s when I learned to love jazz, jazz standards and big band. My paternal grandfather, a pastor, exposed me to classic hymns and spirituals. My mom and dad were in a shag dance club and exposed me to beach music/motown, soul and would listen to doo wop, and other great oldies, as well as the pop of that time which grew my love of 70’s easy listening and ALL 80’s music. My brother listened to east coast rap and jam-bands, like The Grateful Dead, and my best friend’s parents listened to classic rock. I have an affinity for indie, alternative, and rock-n-roll like Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Fleetwood Mac. One of my favorite things to do with friends is sit around the fire pit, or pool, or any relaxed setting and listen to or sing good music. I have enjoyed making playlists all my life - as a high school student for my friends, as gifts for all of the guests at our wedding, for Derrick on our anniversary, for Naomi’s birthdays every year and I enjoy making ‘Get Pumped Up for Baseball/Basketball/Soccer’ playlists for the boys, too.
I believe glitter is a legitimate art supply.
I have a diverse work background and before re-entering the art world, I was an award-winning salesperson for an international hotel chain, a medical device salesperson for a major pharmaceutical company, chief sales and marketing officer for a company I started, and with my entrepreneurial spirit and business degree, I started several other businesses throughout my career, as well as did some business consulting on the side. I was even a farmer! All of this feels like a past life now that I have immersed myself in the art and coaching world.
I drink mold-free coffee because I have been mold sick and am extremely sensitive to foods that are commonly moldy, but most coffee shops don’t serve mold-free coffee so I drink most of my coffee at home, though I’ll never turn down a coffee date with a friend or client.
I cry easily and I have learned to not hold back or hide it. Just the other day, my son rescued a dove that was caught in a baseball batting cage net and he held it lovingly for an hour or two before we had to leave the field. The next day, we checked on the dove in the safe spot we’d placed it and it had died. We both cried and cried, not concerned about who saw. It’s so important to feel the feels, yall! For far too long, I hid them from others because I thought I was “too much” but now I embrace all of these parts of myself beautifully.
Some folks may find it distracting to walk with me, unless they, too, will stop for a cool beetle, or caterpillar crossing, or beautiful leaf. When I was going through my certification program to become a master naturalist, we went on ‘nature walks’ to simply stop and notice. I felt like I had found my people. We were all a bunch of nerds stopping to ooh and ahh and photograph dog vomit slime mold (it’s a harmless fungus, look it up) and ghost pipes.
When I was a little girl, I drew full pages of yearbooks, complete with the rows of rectangles filled with different boys and girls and their unique names on the end of the row. I would include a teacher and even a class photo at the bottom of the page. Man, do I wish I would have kept some of these.
I have a hard time answering the question, ‘What is your favorite ____?” because I love so many things - colors, songs, vacation spots, poets, movies…so, you can ask, but I’ll probably have to list a few things.
Five Things I Could Do Without
One of the worst things in the entire world to me is when my fingernail bends backward. Eghhhhehehehhehe, I’m having a hard time even typing this out it affects me so badly, like in my core, and makes my skin crawl to even imagine it. Egh.
Something else that drives me nuts like no other is when something is rolling around in the backseat while I’m driving or riding in the car. The absolute worst of all is a Perplexus, with the little metal ball rolling around the hard plastic maze, but metal water bottles and other weighty objects that can roll around and make all that ruckus are pretty bad, too.
I am really affected by bad things happening to animals…perhaps more than the typical person. I have a really hard time watching educational nature shows that include the good, bad and ugly. As much as I love nature and learning about it, I am deeply affected by the prey-predator relationship when it’s shown on television. And don’t get me started on people mistreating animals, and those heart-wrenching ASPCA commercials.
The sound of my husband chewing. With his mouth closed. It sounds like crunching, open-mouthed, with a microphone. We actually tested it and he went into our main floor bathroom with the door closed and ate a bit of granola and we could all hear it from the kitchen table. I love him anyway.
The smell of Febreeze, Glade Plug Ins, or those trees that people hang from their rear view mirror, or anything artificial that tries to cover up another smell. I have a spidey-sense of smell so these things give me a headache that won’t quit.
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