All About Holla

Sweet Issues was born the moment I realized being bipolar (at the age of 13) meant that the ups and downs would be here forever. They were a part of my life. And that is being bipolar; I wasn’t “just manic” or “just depressed” or “just anything else” -- I was whole as I brought the two seemingly opposing forces together in balance. (Like yin and yang.) 

Because, while all the stuff in the darkness were issues, there was a sweetness to them… a sweetness in my life that came out to them. A reminder that regardless of what happened in me, around me, or to me, every challenge I overcame would make me stronger.

This became my guiding star through the dark days of my adolescence and early adult life. And I openly share these hard experiences -- through art, through conversation + writing, through teaching -- so others can know that things like mental illness, losing loved ones to suicide and drugs, being raised in alternative ways, having learning disabilities, dealing with drug + alcohol addictions, surviving rape, struggling with motherhood (and what “mom” means), as well as having to choose into non-traditional forms of work (because a typical 9-5 job just isn’t going to cut it), don’t have to define them, confine them, limit them, or deny them their greatest dreams. 

I am living proof of overcoming labels and odds to create a career and life where I can truthfully make a difference… that’s all Sweet Issues.

It’s my soul on display to help other people find their own souls. 

Whether that is using my art to help a grandmother capture the essence of her granddaughter who passed at the age of 10 or guiding an artist through her first tentative steps of reclaiming her spark after suffering “creative trauma” years before.

All my artwork has meaning to it. It has this intuition and internal drive that sees and captures things beneath the surface.

Sweet Issues is about moving energy and creating healing through art.

Because I know in the depths of my soul that Art. Saves. Lives.