An Introduction

Hi, I’m Tara. I’ve been revamping my website and getting things set up to launch my latest collection, Pathways, and I thought now was the right time to introduce myself! Welcome to my little corner of the internet.

Have you ever looked around you and suddenly felt homesick, even when you were sitting on your own couch? Or suddenly felt a need for a deep breath of fresh air and something…more? Different? Beautiful?

That’s what my art is all about.

I grew up in Nebraska way out in the middle of actual nowhere. My favorite way of giving context is that the nearest Walmart was 90 miles away. The nearest McDonalds was 20 miles in a different direction. I have often been asked what there was to do out there. Well, I loved to read, and I loved to draw, and mostly I loved to be outside. 

I never thought of myself as an artist, though. That was definitely my sister.

Many years after I’d almost forgotten how much I love playing with pretty colors, after a big move to New England and a few jobs, marrying the most handsome guy in the neighboring 5 states at least, and having a few babies, the world shut down. You felt it too; we all did. Everything that had previously felt free and easy and exciting was now confining. Stifling. Fearful.

I was claustrophobic in my suburban landscape - oh, for the wide open plains of Nebraska, where I could see! - and even more claustrophobic on my suburban couch. I just had to get outside again.

Somewhere in the middle of the dreariness of those days, I picked up a paintbrush and some watercolor paints for the first time in years. I started going to a state park so I could breathe the free air again. I looked at the autumn leaves all around me - New England is spectacular in the fall - and attempted to put what I saw on paper. The result was predictably not awesome, but I was hooked by the feeling of the paints on the paper and the colors coming to life.

I spent a few years improving my skills and learning from all kinds of different books and teachers, but a major breakthrough came when I started to focus on painting a mood and letting the painting tell me where to go next, rather than trying to produce a particularly realistic snapshot of what I see in front of me. Suddenly, I had a voice, and with it came things I wanted to say with my art.

My new collection, Pathways, is about life. And it’s about death. And it’s about the journey from one place to another. It’s about that feeling of homesickness, even when you’re where you belong, which I have long believed is really just a longing for a better homeland and a better city, whose architect and builder is God.

Each painting in the Pathways collection is named for a significant place in the Bible or the Pilgrim’s Progress, and each one is meant to mark a milestone in life: a place of sacrifice, or conviction, or comfort, or peace. These are the moments that shape us, and I paint to commemorate them. I also paint to point beyond my subject matter - the landscape around us - beyond them. After all, nature itself is crying out with a grand message: “He made us, and He is powerful. He is beautiful. He is wise. He is loving. He is holy. He is awesome.” The most beautiful things and the most fearful all point beyond them to a reality we cannot see but are nevertheless in the middle of, and they all form part of the grand drama of Creation and Redemption that make up the wild wonder of the world.

So welcome to my website, and my art. I’m so glad you’re here. These paintings speak to me, and I’m excited to share them with you.