Hi, my name is Willow.

I regard my art as a gift that came to me from being very ill. For a dozen years I had very active lupus with a lot of cerebral involvement, including a mild stroke. Recovery was a process. First to return was my love of music, then my vocabulary. Prior to my illness I could copy well, but not create art. As I started getting better and realized I couldn’t work outside the home I started drawing. In the process of drawing/writing it, my brain came alive again.

I love drawing and it helped me get my life back. The connections between art and emotion, art and disability, access to our creative selves, and the peace that art (observed or created) gives us, fascinates me.

Because I grew up in the Middle East and Central America I have always known there are multiple ways of being in the world - depending on ecological niche (desert, tropics, 4 seasons, island), eastern vs western cultural heritage, family traditions, and political/world events. In my art I explore stories and traditions of different cultures to find what is unique as well as what we hold in common.