Art that gives you the guts to show up
as your whole damn self.

This Is What Happens When You Stop Pretending

Nicole’s paintings exist because she couldn’t keep pretending everything was fine.
They started as her escape—and became her awakening.

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People love to ask Nicole, “What were you feeling when you painted that?”

Now she welcomes the question. But for a long time? She dreaded it. She’d smile and say something vague like, “I like to let the observer decide how it makes them feel”—which was her polite way of dodging a question she didn’t know how to answer. Because back then, she honestly wasn’t in touch with what she was feeling at all.

She didn’t realize until much later that what she was really doing was coping—with a fast, noisy mind that never stopped spinning, and emotions she didn’t yet have language for. What she also didn’t know at the time was that she has ADHD.

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For most of her life, Nicole had been trying to keep up with the world while feeling like she was always just a step behind—or spinning five steps ahead. She had everything she was supposed to want, but by her late thirties, she was totally burnt out from trying to hold it all together. She hit a full-on rock bottom. But from that broken, beautiful moment came a decision that changed everything: she was finally going to give herself permission to do the one thing she’d always dreamed of—paint.

So, she taught herself. No training, no plan. Just a brush, a canvas, and a deep craving to feel something real. And something amazing happened: her mind got quiet. She could focus. Time slowed. The noise faded.

It became the first place she could fully be herself.

Through that stillness, things started to come into focus—big things. She began to see patterns in her life and relationships that weren’t serving her. She started understanding her ADHD. And most powerfully of all, she met Kat.

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Falling in love with Kat was like being handed a mirror and seeing herself clearly for the first time. It was electric. Undeniable. And suddenly, she couldn’t not see it—she was gay. It wasn’t just a realization. It was a homecoming. A remembering. And Kat? Was the safe, beautiful space Nicole had been unknowingly searching for her entire life.

That love cracked her wide open—in the best way. It gave her the courage to embrace who she really was, to stop performing, and to start living. Fully, joyfully, authentically. It also deepened her art. Because now, the feelings were finally flowing and she became aware that her paintings were honest reflections of her inner world, not just quiet escapes from it.

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These days, Nicole paints from a place of freedom. Her work is bold, textured, and alive. It’s for anyone who’s ever felt like they were too much, or not enough. For anyone craving beauty that’s rooted in truth. And for anyone standing on the edge of a new beginning, wondering if they’re allowed to leap.

(Spoiler: you are.)

Nicole found herself through paint, through love, through letting go.
And now? She’s painting what it feels like to come home to yourself.